title: Implication of heme oxygenase-1 in the sensitivity of nasopharyngeal carcinomas to radiotherapy.
abstract: High expression of the inducible isoform of heme oxygenase (HO-1) is well known in various solid tumors in human and experimental animal models. To investigate the relationship between HO-1 and nasopharyngeal carcinomas, especially its involvement in the response of nasopharyngeal carcinomas to radiotherapy, thirty-two nasopharyngeal carcinomas were semi-quantitatively analyzed by RT-PCR, and the expression of HO-1 was correlated with the consequence after novel radiotherapy, which was evaluated by the reduction of tumor size. Among 32 nasopharyngeal carcinomas, HO-1 expression was found in 19 samples (59.4%), in which 9 patients (47.4%) showed no response to radiotherapy. Interestingly, in 13 nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with negative expression of HO-1, radiotherapy exhibited to be effective (9 patients, 69.2%) or responsive (3 patients, 23.1%). In this study, we first demonstrated the expression of HO-1 in nasopharyngeal carcinomas, and more important, these findings strongly suggest the potential of HO-1 as a useful index in identifying patients with well response to radiotherapy, further these data indicate a new therapeutic for nasopharyngeal carcinoma by inhibiting HO-1 activity, which warrants further investigation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, 110001, P R China. sxlsxl@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D051547:Heme Oxygenase-1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D009305:Nasopharynx / Q000473:pathology / Q000528:radiation effects; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D012333:RNA, Messenger; D051547:Heme Oxygenase-1