Increase of KLK7, cytokeratin 5/6, and elafin expression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma compared with lung squamous cell carcinoma

ABSTRACT

Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common primary tumor in the head and neck epithelium and is the second most common primary tumor type in the lung. Although morphologically indistinguishable from each other with hematoxylin and eosin stain on histology, the tumors have different protein expression profiles. Using 24 formalin-fixed paraffin embedded squamous cell carcinomas of the lung and 24 squamous cell carcinomas in the head and neck, protein expression for cytokeratin 5/6, kallikrein 7, and elafin was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. All three proteins were found to evidence higher expression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as compared with that of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung. The differences in expression may help clinical differentiation between primary tumors of the lung from metastatic tumors to the lung from the oral/laryngeal cavities.

KEYWORDS:

• Cancer
• cytokeratin 5/6
• elafin
• immunohistochemistry
• KLK7
• squamous cell carcinoma

Acknowledgements

We thank the managers and histology scientists at Doctors Anatomic Pathology Services, St. Bernards Healthcare, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Idexx, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and University of Tennessee DermPath laboratory for their ongoing support of the histotechnology curriculum at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data set associated with this study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request

Study approval

This study was approved by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Institutional Review Board IRB number 23–09185-NHSR