Aberrant expression of cyclin A in head and neck cancer

Cyclin A expression was studied in a series of 65 squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck (HNSCC) and compared with known markers of proliferation, iododeoxyuridine (IdUrd) and Ki-67, to assess whether aberrant expression was prevalent. Patients had previously been administered IdUrd to study cell kinetics in relation to outcome of radiotherapy. The data showed that all three parameters were highly correlated although the absolute values were different. The median labelling indices (LI) for IdUrd, cyclin A and Ki-67 were 10.7, 17.1 and 30.8% respectively, reflecting the known pattern of differential cell cycle expression. However, there were a significant number of cases in which an unexpected relationship between cyclin A and either IdUrd or Ki-67 was present. Some of these were attributable to overexpression but others indicated underexpression. Although the greater variability and range of cyclin A expression, coupled with its more closely associated role in cell cycle regulation, might suggest that it may be a more informative marker for cell proliferation than Ki-67, the aberrant expression seen in over one third of cases would indicate that caution should be exercised in interpreting cyclin A as a surrogate marker of proliferation in HNSCC.