Mutation analysis of second primary tumors in head and neck cancer in Taiwanese patients through next-generation sequencing

Abstract

Head and neck cancer has poor overall survival. Patients with head and neck cancer more frequently develop second primary tumors than do patients with other cancers, leading to a poor prognosis. In this study, we used next-generation sequencing to analyze and compare mutations between first tumors and second tumors in head and neck cancer. We retrieved tumor tissues collected from 15 patients who were diagnosed twice as having cancer. We used driver gene and trunk mutations to distinguish between recurrent cancer and primary cancer in oral cancer. We observed unique driver gene mutations in three patients with an initial clinical diagnosis of recurrent cancer; hence, we believe that the corresponding patients had primary cancer. Four patients with an initial clinical diagnosis of primary cancer were found to actually have recurrent cancer according to our results. Three (75%) patients with recurrent cancer demonstrated NUP98 mutations. NUP98 mutations may be a new biomarker for diagnosing recurrent oral cancer. Genetic testing can be used to enhance the accuracy of clinical diagnosis.