Poor PS, short period of time since the previous treatment, and more than one metastatic location were associated with poorer prognostic.

Despite classical environmental risk factors like tobacco, alcohol or viral infection, not all individuals develop head and neck cancer. Therefore, identification of the genetic susceptibility produced by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is an important task. A total of 296 human papillomavirus negative head and neck cancer (HNC) patients (126 laryngeal, 100 pharyngeal and 70 oral cavity) were included in the study, involving 29 candidate SNPs in genes within important carcinogenic pathways (oncogenesis and tumour suppression, DNA repair, inflammation, oxidation and apoptosis). Genotyping was performed using TaqMan probes or restriction fragment length assays in peripheral blood DNA. In addition, 259 paired controls were also evaluated with the same risk factors for each specific location. Nine SNPs in DNA repair (ERCC1 rs11615, ERCC2 rs13181), inflammatory (IL2 rs2069762, IL6 rs1800795), oxidative (NFE2L2 rs13035806 and rs2706110) and apoptotic genes (TP53 rs1042522, MDM2 rs2279744, BCL2 rs2279115) were differently associated with HNSCC susceptibility by location. Some of these SNPs were not described before in this tumour type. In conclusion, we describe several SNPs associated with HNC in a Spanish population.

Treatment of larynx cancer has changed dramatically over the past several years. Novel modalities of treatment have been introduced as organ preservation has been developed. In addition, new targeted therapies have appeared, and improvements in radiotherapeutic and surgical techniques have been introduced. Thus, a large variety of treatment options is increasing local control rates and overall survival; however, selecting the most appropriate treatment remains a challenging decision. This article focuses on the multidisciplinary care of early-stage and locally advanced larynx cancer and attempts to sum up different approaches. Moreover, it reviews state-of-the-art treatment in larynx preservation, which has been consolidated in recent years.

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the sixth cancer on incidence worldwide. Tobacco and alcohol consumption are the most classical risk factors associated with its development. Autophagy process has a dual effect both in tumourigenesis and tumour suppressing activity. To investigate the importance of this pathway in HNSCC susceptibility, a risk factor matched case-control association study was performed with four candidate polymorphisms in autophagy genes (ATG2B, ATG5, ATG10, ATG16L1). We found an association between the variant in ATG10 rs1864183 and a higher susceptibility to develop laryngeal cancer, ATG2B rs3759601 and pharyngeal cancer and ATG16L1 rs2241880 and oral carcinoma. ATG5 rs2245214 SNP was not associated with any location. Overall, our results indicate the importance of the autophagy pathway in the susceptibility of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and demonstrate the heterogeneity between its locations encompassed under a single terminology.

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterised by high pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). However, refractory and poor NAC responders still face very poor outcome, emphasising the urgent need for tools that facilitate identification of these patients, so that surgery or alternatives to NAC are considered early in the treatment protocol. Materials and methods: We combined metabolomics, exosome circulating miRNAs and flow cytometry experimental approaches in TNBC patients at diagnosis with immunohistochemistry in needle biopsy tumours to generate NAC-response predictive models. We also co