New Tumor Budding Evaluation in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Pathology
• Histomorphology

Background:

• Tumor budding (TB) is a key histomorphological feature at the invasion front.
• TB impacts prognostic outcome prediction in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the reliability of TB scoring in FFPE-fixed versus cryo-fixed HNSCC tissues.
• To evaluate the correlation of TB scores with tumor aggressiveness and patient outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of average TB score (TB rel) in FFPE-fixed tumor slices from 66 HNSCC patients.
• Comparison of TB scores between FFPE and cryo-fixed sections.
• Correlation of TB scores with lymph node metastasis, extra capsular growth, and grading.

Main Results:

• TB rel correlates significantly with tumor aggressiveness markers.
• TB scores exhibit variability across different margins within the same patient's FFPE sections.
• Fixation method impacts TB score determination, with cryo-sections showing inaccuracy compared to FFPE.

Conclusions:

• Randomly selected marginal cuts are unreliable for predicting prognostic outcomes due to TB score variability.
• TB rel offers a potential method to standardize TB score analysis and compensate for inter-observer/inter-method variability.
• FFPE fixation is more reliable for accurate TB score determination in HNSCC compared to cryo-fixation.