1. ¹Thomas Tatum Head and Neck Unit, St George's Hospital, London, UK
2. ²The Institute of Cancer Research, McElwain Laboratories, Sutton, UK
3. ³Department of Cellular Pathology, St George's Hospital, London, UK
4. ⁴Head and Neck Unit, Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK
5. ⁵Statistics Unit, Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK
6. ⁶The Institute of Cancer Research, Chester Beatty Laboratories, London, UK

Correspondence: Dr KJ Harrington, Targeted Therapy Laboratory, The Institute of Cancer Research, Cancer Research UK Centre for Cell and Molecular Biology, Chester Beatty Laboratories, 237 Fulham Road, London SW3 6JB, UK. E-mail: kevinh@icr.ac.uk

Received 10 January 2007; Revised 28 June 2007; Accepted 29 June 2007; Published online 7 August 2007.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of CC chemokine receptor 7 (CCR7) in squamous cell cancer of the tonsil with respect to patterns of spread, relapse-free, overall and disease-specific survival. Eighty-four patients with squamous cell cancer of the tonsil were identified. There was a male predominance of 3 : 1 and the median age at diagnosis was 53 (range 35–86) years. The median duration of follow-up was 33 (range 2–124) months. There was a significant association between CCR7 immunopositivity and synchronous cervical nodal metastasis in patients with tonsillar cancer (Spearman's correlation coefficient 0.564; P<0.001). Relapse-free (P=0.0175), overall (P=0.0136) and disease-specific (P=0.0062) survival rates were significantly lower in patients whose tumours expressed high levels of CCR7. On multivariate analysis, high-level CCR7 staining predicted relapse-free (hazard ratio 3.0, 95% confidence intervals 1.1–8.0, P=0.026) and disease-specific (hazard ratio 10.2, 95% confidence intervals 2.1–48.6, P=0.004) survival. Fifteen percent of patients with the highest level of tumour CCR7 immunopositivity relapsed with systemic metastases. These data demonstrated that CCR7 expression was associated with cervical nodal and systemic metastases from tonsillar cancers. High levels of CCR7 expression predicted a poor prognosis.