In vitro experiments were performed to evaluate the biocompatibility of metallic plates used in reconstructive maxillofacial surgery, analyzing the effect of titanium, nickel-chromium-molybdenum and stainless steel plates on some functional features of human erythrocytes and platelets, being rheological properties and platelet responsiveness pivotal for the perfusion of the tissues surroding the metallic implants. Our data underline that the tested plates are not responsible for significant alterations of the erythrocyte rheological features and of platelet reactivity.

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[p53 mutations and chemoresistance in oromaxillofacial squamous-cell carcinomas. The results of a molecular genetics study of p53 in metastatic oromaxillofacial tumors and an evaluation of the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapeutic treatment].

MATERIAL AND METHODS: The authors carried out a p53 genetic research on native DNA in 15 oral-maxillofacial squamous cell carcinomas, lymph nodes metastasis, treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy, checking the p53 "status" and the clinical response to the chemotherapeutic treatment (three 5-FU/CDDP cycles). RESULTS: The authors found p53 mutations in 3/15 cases. In these cases, at post-chemo restaging, it resulted 2 progressions and 1 stability of disease. In the 12 cases with wildtype p53: 4 objective improvements and partial responses (PR), respectively, of 55% (1), 60% (1), 65% (1), 70% (1), 75% (2) and 90% (2). The 15 patients were treated then by surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy (three C-F cycles). These results seem to confirm the outcome of the researches "in vitro" and they provide first correlations between p53 mutations and chemoresistance in oral squamous cell carcinomas. The survival evaluation also, in the examined cases, shows, but with medium-term follow-up, the tendency to a poor prognosis when p53 is altered. CONCLUSIONS: This research outlines the possibility, also for oral and maxillofacial tumors, to utilize, p53 as a prognostic and chemoresponse marker, useful, with the otherwise well-known prognostic factors, for the evaluation of advanced cancers, in the interests of a more suitable therapeutic protocol.

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