%0 Journal Article %T Evaluation of Tissue Expression and Salivary Levels of HER2/neu in Patients with Head and Neck Squamous cell Carcinoma %J Iranian Journal of Otorhinolaryngology %I Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) %Z 2251-7251 %A Pardis, Soheil %A Sardari, Yasaman %A Ashraf, Mohammad Javad %A Tadbir, Azadeh Andisheh %A Ebrahimi, Hooman %A Purshahidi, Sara %A Khademi, Bijan %A Fattahi, Mohammad Javad %A Hamzavi, Marzieh %D 2012 %\ 10/01/2012 %V 24 %N 4 %P 161-170 %! Evaluation of Tissue Expression and Salivary Levels of HER2/neu in Patients with Head and Neck Squamous cell Carcinoma %K Carcinoma %K HER2/neu %K salivary gland %K Squamous cell of head and neck %K Tissue expression %R 10.22038/ijorl.2012.668 %X Introduction: HER2/neu, a member of the epidermal growth factor receptor family, has been shown to be over-expressed in some tumors. The purpose of this study was to determine the salivary levels and tissue expression of HER2/neu in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and their correlation with clinicopathologic parameters.   Materials and Methods: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were used to evaluate the salivary levels of HER2/neu and immunohistochemistry was used to measure tissue expression of HER2/neu in 28 patients with HNSCC and 25 healthy control subjects.   Results: The salivary levels of HER2/neu in patients with HNSCC were not significantly higher compared to healthy control subjects. There was no apparent correlation between salivary HER2/neu levels and clinicopathological features such as age, sex, tumor grade, tumor size and nodal status. All HNSCC specimens were positive (membranous or/and cytoplasmic) for HER2/neu, except one sample. Only one HNSCC specimen showed staining purely in the tumor-cell cytoplasm. All control specimens were also positive for both membranous and cytoplasmic HER2/neu but there was a significant difference between the level of cytoplasmic staining in the HNSCC specimens and in the control specimens (P<0.05).   Conclusion: In our study, no overexpression of HER2/neu was observed. Thus, identification of HER2/neu levels plays no role in differentiating between normal and squamous cell carcinoma tissues or detecting the carcinogenesis process. Our findings suggest that the use of HER2/neu as a salivary marker of HNSCC is not recommended, because no significant preoperative elevation and no association with clinicopathological features were found.  %U https://ijorl.mums.ac.ir/article_668_b706dce7bea8b8f23e9327611db6360d.pdf