Oncogenes overexpressed in metastatic oral cancers from patients with pain: potential pain mediators released in exosomes.

ABSTRACT: Oral cancer patients experience pain at the site of the primary cancer. Patients with metastatic oral cancers report greater pain. Lack of pain identifies patients at low risk of metastasis with sensitivity = 0.94 and negative predictive value = 0.89. In the same cohort, sensitivity and negative predictive value of depth of invasion, currently the best predictor, were 0.95 and 0.92, respectively. Cancer pain is attributed to cancer-derived mediators that sensitize neurons and is associated with increased neuronal density. We hypothesized that pain mediators would be overexpressed in metastatic cancers from patients reporting high pain. We identified 40 genes overexpressed in metastatic cancers from patients reporting high pain (n = 5) compared to N0 cancers (n = 10) and normal tissue (n = 

SUBMITTER: Bhattacharya A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7477576 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature