Document Type : Research Articles
Authors
1
Department of Oral Pahtology, Dental Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
2
Dental Materials Research Center, Oral Pahtology Department, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
3
Dental Implant Research Center, Oral Pahtology Department, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
4
Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Dental Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
5
General Practitioner, Isfahan, Iran.
Abstract
Background: Angiogenic activity is an important event in oral carcinogenesis. During transition of normal
oral mucosa to different grades of dysplasia and to invasive carcinoma, significant increase of vascularity occurs.
Angiogenesis can be determined by immunohistochemical assessment of several endothelial cell markers like
Endogelin (CD 105), expressed in activated endothelial cells and associated with neovasculature, and the vascular
endothelial growth factor (VEGF). This study was conducted to evaluate angiogenic activity in oral precancerous lesions
compared with oral invasive carcinomas by immunohistochemical staining of VEGF and CD 105 proteins. Methods:
In the present cross-sectional study, 20 normal, 20 pre-cancerous mucosa and 20 oral invasive carcinoma samples
were immunohistochemically stained. Positive cells were counted in each section and micro vessel density (MVD)
was determined. The data were statistically analyzed by Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests, with a P-value ≤0.05
considered significant. Results: The mean expression value for VEGF was 24.6 in oral invasive carcinoma, 16.4 in
precancerous mucosa and 15.5 in normal mucosa, with no significant differences between the latter two. Endoglin
was negative in all normal mucosa samples, but had scores of 7.58 for precancerous mucosa and 19.4 in oral invasive
carcinoma specimens. MVD was significantly higher in SCC than in dysplastic mucosa. Conclusion: Oral invasive
carcinoma has more angiogenic activity in comparison with pre-cancerous lesions and normal mucosa. Given the high
expression of CD105 positive vessels in malignant lesions, we can argue that determination of mean vessel density (MVD)
by application of the CD105 marker could be a useful parameter to differentiate cancerous from pre-cancerous lesions.
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