Laryngeal Cancer Tissue Protein Expression

Thirty-two patients who underwent partial or total laryngectomy for LSCC at the Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital of Split, Split, Croatia, between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2018, were included in this retrospective study. Patients who had undergone primary oncologic treatment and patients with distant metastases were excluded from the study. Paraffin blocks of laryngeal tumor tissue and adjacent normal mucosa were obtained from the Department of Pathology, Cytology and Forensic Medicine of the same institution, and clinical data were collected from the hospital records. For each patient, the following data of interest were recorded: age, sex, tumor location, type of surgery, tumor size, TNM staging, lymphovascular and perineural invasion and pathohisto-logical grade (Figure 1). Immunofluorescence staining was performed at the Department of Anatomy, Histology and Embryology, University of Split, School of Medicine. For every patient, both malignant and normal laryngeal tissues were discriminated by an experienced pathologist and simultaneous staining was performed. The expression of connexin 37, connexin 40, connexin 45, pannexin-1 and vimentin was analyzed in the tumor samples in comparison to the adjacent healthy tissue by two independent investigators.