Relationship beetwen E-Cadherin Protein Expression and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Grading

Oral cancers are the eighth most common cancers in males and the 15th in females. Squamous cell carcinoma comprises approximately 94% of oral malignancies. Oral cancer develops and progresses during two important biological stages. The aim of the present study was to determine the expression of E-cadherin protein in different stages of oral mucosa SCC after evaluation of the role of this protein in the tumorigenesis of oral mucosa squamous cells. In the present retrospective, descriptive- analytical study, 20 paraffin blocks fixed with formalin, consisting of 10 samples with a diagnosis of well-differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and 10 samples with a diagnosis of poorly differentiated OSCC, were selected and stained with immunohistochemistry technique, irrespective of the patient age and gender. In addition, 5 samples of normal oral mucosa were selected as controls. Then the stained samples were evaluated by two pathologists. Data were analyzed with Chi-squared, McNemar and Fisher’s exact tests using SPSS 20 (α = 0.05). The expression of E-cadherin marker exhibited a significant decrease with a decrease in histological differentiation of OSCC at different differentiation levels in terms of location, staining and presence and absence of staining homogeneity of the marker. In addition, the staining of the marker exhibited significant differences between poorly and well-differentiated cells. The results of the present study showed that the expression of E-cadherin protein decreased with poor histological differentiation of squamous cells.