[Role of tyrosine kinases in tumor progression of the head and neck].

Receptor tyrosine kinases play a key role in intercellular communication to maintain cellular integrity in tissues. Genetic alterations in these receptor-enzyme complexes or in their downstream signalling pathways may alter cellular characteristics such as proliferation, adhesion, differentiation and apoptosis. This result explains the role of these receptor complexes in the pathogenesis of malignancies. This article resumes the molecular basis and grouping of this receptor family and discusses the role of receptor alterations in carcinogenesis. This will be exemplified using the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) subfamily as well as the significance of single nucleotide polymorphism in cancer progression. The authors show that the application of molecular therapy is very promising and should be taken into consideration in concepts of multimodal cancer therapy.