Original Research Article
Year: 2018 | Month: August | Volume: 8 | Issue: 8 | Pages: 115-120
Quantitative Evaluation of Argyrophilic Nucleolar Organizer Regions in Different Histopathological Grades of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Girish. KL1, Pradeesh Sathyan2
1,2MDS,1Professor, 2Reader, Department of oral pathology,
Sree Mookambika Institute of Dental Sciences, Kulasekharam
Corresponding Author: Dr.Girish. KL
ABSTRACT
Context: Oral cancer is one of the tenth most common cancers worldwide and is a major problem in India and account for 50-70% of all cancers diagnosed. The most common type of oral cancer is squamous cell carcinoma, constituting about 90% of all oral malignancies and causing more deaths than any other oral disease. Dysplasia is an important feature of squamous cell carcinoma. The degree of epithelial dysplasia serves as a useful guide in diagnosis, histological grading and management of such lesions. Many recent reports have suggested that the number of nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) per nucleus is related to cellular proliferation and differentiation. NORs can be identified indirectly by means of argyrophilia of their associated proteins.
Aims: To evaluate the argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) in normalmucosa and different histopathologicalgrades of oral squamous cell carcinoma.
Materials and Methods: The study included a total of fortysamples of which ten cases each of well differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated oral squamous cell carcinomas constituted the study group, whereas ten cases of normal mucosa formed the control group. AgNORs were analyzed in formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue sections of histopathologically confirmed cases using silver staining technique. Counting of AgNORs was done and the mean AgNOR count was obtained and statistically analyzed usingANOVA test.
Results: There was a significant rise in mean AgNOR count of oral squamous cell carcinomas in the order of well differentiated (6.59±0.20), moderately differentiated (7.96±0.22) and poorly differentiated (8.84±0.24) compared to that of normal mucosa (2.49±0.30).
Conclusions: A high positive correlation was observed between NORs of well differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated oral squamous cell carcinomas. The mean values of NORs increased as the grades increased.
Key words: AgNORs, Silver staining, Squamous cell carcinoma.