Stathmin! An Immunohistochemical Analysis of the Novel Marker in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Oral Leukoplakia

BACKGROUND: Stathmin is an intracellular phosphoprotein that controls the microtubule dynamics by further regulating proper attachment and alignment of chromosomes in a dividing cell. Thus, any mutation or aberrantly expressed protein that reduces the fidelity of spindle assembly will enhance chromosomal instability contributing to aneuploidy. Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma is an extensively studied malignancy that occurs due to accumulated genetic changes due to carcinogens. The current study is done to evaluate the stathmin role and its expression in OSCC and Oral epithelial dysplasia (OED). OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present study is to evaluate the role of stathmin in OSCC and Oral dysplasia and also to correlate the expression of Stathmin with respect to the different histopathological grades of OED and OSCC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 30 neutral buffered formalin fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissues of Oral Leukoplakia/OED and 30 FFPE tissues of OSCC were subjected to immunohistochemistry with stathmin antibody. Five fields of each case with 300 cells were examined and a mean percentage of positive–stained slides were determined. The percentages were recorded accordingly with their respective histological grades. The results were analysed statistically. RESULTS: The results of the present study demonstrated higher mean values of stathmin in tissues with OSCC (2.50) compared to leukoplakia (2.11) and normal tissues (0.00) with a high level of statistical significance (0.0001). There is also an increase in the percentage levels of stathmin with increase in the histological grade of differentiation in OSCC as well as leukoplakia. CONCLUSION: The present study found a statistical correlation between increased grades of the disease with expression levels of stathmin. This confirms that stathmin expression can contribute to disease progression and that stathmin might have a potential role as an early diagnostic biomarker and can be a therapeutic target for OSCC.