{"doi":"10.1002/hed.26692","title":"Circulating hybrid cells predict presence of occult nodal metastases in oral cavity carcinoma","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Levels of circulating hybrid cells (CHCs), a newly identified circulating tumor cell (CTC), correlate with disease stage and progression in cancer. We investigated their utility to risk-stratify patients with clinically N0 (cN0) oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC), and to identify patients with occult cervical lymph node metastases (pN+). METHODS: We analyzed peripheral blood samples for CHCs with co-expression of cytokeratin (tumor) and CD45 (leukocyte) from 22 patients with cN0 OCSCC using immunofluorescence microscopy, then correlated levels with pathologic lymph node status. RESULTS: CHC levels exceeded CTCs and correlated with the presence of both clinically overt (p = 0.002) and occult nodal metastases (p = 0.006). CONCLUSIONS: For evaluated cN0 OCSCC patients, those with cN0 → pN+ status harbored elevated CHC levels compared to patients without occult disease. Our findings highlight a promising blood-based biologic assay with potential utility to determine the necessity of surgical neck dissection for staging and treatment.","journal":"Head & Neck","year":2021,"id":161262,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":27,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9027,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":558838,"name":"Ashley N. Anderson","orcid":"0000-0002-7522-846X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":676265,"name":"Yvette R. Hollett","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":408726,"name":"Thomas L. Sutton","orcid":"0000-0002-2894-7154","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":645761,"name":"Brett S. Walker","orcid":"0000-0001-7628-4925","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":645765,"name":"John Swain","orcid":"0000-0002-1105-6654","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":603335,"name":"David Sauer","orcid":"0000-0001-8974-2040","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":558844,"name":"Daniel Clayburgh","orcid":"0000-0002-3296-4926","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":490388,"name":"Melissa H. Wong","orcid":"0000-0002-5127-279X","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":676264,"name":"Tara E. Henn","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":32,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:44:52.299342Z","pmid":"33835633","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}