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There were an estimated 45,000 new cases of squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck last year, making it one of the most common cancers. The medical community now knows more about this cancer and patient survival as a result of a study co-authored by W. Jarrard Goodwin, M.D., director of the University’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The seven-year study, appearing in the December 20 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, focused on a common genetic alteration in cancer cells, TP53, and its effect on the survival of patients with squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Goodwin, along with researchers at The Johns Hopkins University, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Fox Chase Cancer Center, studied 420 patients with the cancer.

One of the most common genetic alterations of cancer cells is the cancellation of the tumor-suppressor protein p53, which occurs as a result of a mutation of its TP53 gene. Mutations were classified as either disruptive, because of their location inside the key DNA-binding domain, or nondisruptive, based on their location outside that region.

The study showed that any type of TP53 mutation was significantly linked to decreased overall survival. Goodwin and the other researchers determined that disruptive mutations of TP53 in particular are strongly associated with short survival of patients with squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck. In the future, the physicians believe it would be useful to determine whether TP53 mutations are associated with response to treatments that attack p53-specific pathways.