Biomarker May Predict Prognosis for Head and Neck Cancer Patients

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital for Einstein, have discovered a biomarker in head and neck cancers that can predict whether a patient’s tumor will be life-threatening. The biomarker is particularly promising in that it can detect the level of risk immediately after diagnosis. This discovery could become part of a new test to guide how aggressively patients with head and neck tumors should be treated. The findings were published on Jan. 9 in the American Journal of Pathology.

“Previous efforts to identify biomarkers for guiding treatment of head and neck cancer have not developed anything clinically useful for patients,” says Geoffrey Childs, PhD, professor of pathology at Einstein and co-senior author of the paper. For more information, click here to read the full release.