Laryngeal carcinoma experimental model suggests the possibility of tumor seeding to gastrostomy site

Med Hypotheses. 2021 May:150:110573. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2021.110573. Epub 2021 Mar 23.

Abstract

Some studies state that laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is associated with possible direct tumor cell seeding to percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) site. However, there is a lack of experimental proof that LSCC tumor tissue can adhere and grow in distant sites. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the growth pattern of LSCC implants on chicken embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) and evaluate possible associations between clinical course of the disease and behavior of experimentally implanted LSCC tumors. Our results show that implanted LSCC tissue survives on CAMs in 95% of cases while retaining essential morphologic characteristics and proliferative capacity of the original tumor. We identified the increased CAM vascularization, an infiltrative growth pattern of the implant and formation of distant isolated metastatic nodes on the CAMs. LSCC tumors with worse differentiation degree (G2 or G3) adhered to the experimental CAMs significantly better than G1. These results facilitate the understanding of tumor biology and allow hypothetisezing that dissemination and direct implantation of LSCC cells into the stomal wall during the pull PEG procedure might be possible.

Keywords: Chicken embryo CAM; Chorioallantoic membrane; Experimental models; Laryngeal carcinoma; PEG.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Carcinoma, Squamous Cell*
  • Chick Embryo
  • Gastrostomy
  • Laryngeal Neoplasms*
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Neovascularization, Pathologic