Rearrangements involving the 13q chromosome arm committed to the progression of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Our recent comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) study has shown that losses of the long arm of chromosome 13 were the most common aberrations in primary larynx tumors and their corresponding metastases. In the present study, 20 pairs of primary larynx tumors and their metastases were analyzed by interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) with three different 13q-specific probes (RB1, D13S25, and 13qtel). Our experiments were generally consistent with the CGH results, with some differences indicating cell population heterogeneity in the analyzed cohort of tumors. The results provided further evidence for the putative role of the RB1 gene alterations in the metastatic process, although a contribution by other gene(s) during metastasis cannot be ruled out.