RATIONALE: Studying samples of blood, tissue, and saliva in the laboratory from patients with cancer and from healthy volunteers may help doctors identify and learn more about biomarkers related to cancer.

PURPOSE: This laboratory study is looking at biomarkers in patients with head and neck cancer and in healthy volunteers.

OBJECTIVES:

• Correlate the differences in serum protein profiles with the differences in the number of peptide matches in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and in healthy volunteers.
• Correlate protein levels with the largest difference in peptide matches in sera in these participants.

OUTLINE: This is a prospective study.

Participants undergo blood, tissue, and saliva collection for biological studies. Samples are analyzed for albumin-bound and non-albumin-bound proteins or IgG via liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS), ELISA, proteomic profiling, and protein expression.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 50 patients and 50 healthy volunteers will be accrued for this study.

DISEASE CHARACTERISTICS:

• Meets one of the following criteria:

  • Diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck
  • Healthy volunteer matched by sex, race, birth decade, or smoking status (e.g., current smoker, former smoker, or nonsmoker)

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

• Not specified

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

• Not specified