Early detection and prevention of oral squamous cell carcinoma is highly desirable. Additionally, the development of effective and non-invasive surrogate diagnostic – prognostic endpoints for carcinogenic progression as well as monitoring chemoprevention of head and neck cancer would be very valuable. Cell proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation are fundamental aspects of tumor biology. Sustained precancer and cancer growth requires a positive balance between malignant cell proliferation and cell apoptosis. The brush biopsy( exfoliative cytology) while controversial, has shown utility in aspects of diagnosis in pre-malignant oral lesions. Objective: To explore apoptotic biomarkers in brush biopsies for oral carcinogenesis. Methods: A modified fluorescent TUNEL technique ( APO-BrdU TUNEL ) was applied to exfoliated epithelial cells smeared from brush biopsies from 10 healthy controls(C), 10 patients with oral leukoplakia with dysplasia (OL), and10 subjects with oral lichen planus(OLP). Results: The results indicated that the apoptotic cells from the brush biopsies were detected in all groups of study subjects. The apoptotic cells demonstrated identical morphology to exfoliated epithelial cells of the oral mucosa. The fraction of apoptotic cells in the OL group (29.66± 5.65) and the OLP group (27.91± 2.85) were both higher than that in the C (17.7 ±3.75) group (P< 0.05). Conclusions: These results indicate that detection of apoptotic cells from brush biopsies may have some clinical potential in monitoring abnormal cell death and may reveal some insights into the mechanism of oral carcinogenesis.

Back to the Oral Medicine & Pathology Program
Back to the IADR/AADR/CADR 82nd General Session (March 10-13, 2004)

Top Level Search