Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma is a carcinoma with squamous differentiation arising from the mucosal epithelium. The pathogenesis of oral cancers is multifactorial. P53, guardian of the genome regulates cell cycle progression, DNA repair, cellular senescence and apoptosis. Ki-67 is a cell cycle associated nuclear protein used as a proliferation marker to measure the growth fraction of cells in human tumours.
Aims and Objectives: To compare demographic factors like age, sex and predisposing factors. To evaluate grade of differentiation, expression of p53, Ki67 and their comparison in various grades of differentiation in oral squamous cell carcinomas.
Materials and Methods: This study comprises of 35 cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma After processing of representative tissue block, H\&E and IHC stain with Ki-67 and p53 immunomarkers were carried out.
Results: Out of 35 cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma,20(57%) were well differentiated, 14(40%) moderately differentiated, 1(3%) was poorly differentiated. The age range was 26-85 years. Sex ratio was 2:1. The most common risk factor for development of cancer was found to be smoking (57%) followed by betel quid chewing (43%). The most common clinical presentation was non healing ulcer (80%). Sensitivity of Ki67 and P53 is 100% and 63% respectively.
Conclusion: P53 positivity was demonstrated in majority of cases indicating that it is most common genetic mutations in oral cancers. The present study showed an inverse correlation between the degree of tumour differentiation and the rate of cell proliferation obtained by the expression of Ki-67.
