Tumor-Associated Tissue Eosinophilia in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Head and Neck

Tumor-associated tissue eosinophilia (TATE) is reported in different cancers of human body but its exact role is not yet defined in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
The current study aimed to assess the relationship between TATE and histopathologic grading, age and gender of patients with HNSCC.
In this cross-sectional study, 90 paraffin-embedded blocks of HNSCC samples were sectioned and stained with Sirius red (a histochemical staining). Then the eosinophils were counted in 10 high power fields with magnification of 400x (eosinophil/10HPF). Data were analyzed using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and the Spearman correlation tests by SPSS software version 21.0.
The mean age of the samples was 60.23 years, 46.67% of the samples were male and 53.33% were female. Histopathologically, 51 cases were grade1 (56.67%), 25 cases were grade 2 (27.78%) and 14 cases were grade 3 (15.55%). The average eosinophil count in all cases was 143.56 ± 135.90 eosinophil/10HPF. There was no significant relationship between TATE and age, gender and histopathologic grading in HNSCC patients.
According to the obtained results, apparently eosinophils had a poor role in HNSCC progression and there was no obvious relationship between the occurrence of this disease and clinicopathologic factors in patients with HNSCC.