The Usage of Curcumin as Chemopreventive Agent for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: An Experimental Study on Sprague-Dawley Rat

Background: Curcumin, a natural herb that can be isolated from turmeric has been known for its therapeutic potential, including its chemopreventive potential, while heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) is an antioxidant enzyme that can act as the biomarker for the progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The current study investigated the efficacy of curcumin as a chemopreventive agent for OSCC by evaluating the immunoexpression of HO-1 at epithelial dysplasia stage. Methods: The current experimental study was conducted at the Veterinary Medicine Faculty, Bogor Agricultural Institute, Indonesia, using 40 Sprague-Dawley rats. All rats were randomly divided into 1 of 2 groups: the experimental group that was fed with standard rat food and curcumin and the control group that was fed with standard rat food without curcumin. At the beginning of the fifth week, every animal was wounded on the right buccal mucosa and was exposed to 0.5% 7,12-dymethylbenz(a)anthracene 3 times a week for 4 weeks in order to induce epithelial dysplasia of OSCC. On the ninth week, the right buccal mucosa was biopsied and the immunoexpression of HO-1 in both groups was compared and analyzed. Results: Sample examination revealed that all rats showed moderate to severe dysplastic epithelial dysplasia stage of OSCC, while a Mann-Whitney test showed that there was no significant (P = .09) difference found between the 2 groups for the immunoexpression of HO-1. Conclusion: With regard to its chemopreventive potential, the curcumin dose used in the study was not proven to be effective. Further study is of importance.