Expression of Ki67 Biomarker in Oral Submucous Fibrosis with Clinico-Pathological Correlations: A Prospective Study

OBJECTIVES: Oral Submucous Fibrosis (OSMF) is potentially malignant disorder known to transform into oral cancer. The aim of this study is to determine the degree and pattern of expression of aberrant Ki67 in OSMF, oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and in normal oral mucosa patients (NOM). The objective is to correlate between Ki67 expression and degree of dysplasia in OSMF patents and also Ki67 expression with clinical and histological grading of OSMF and OSCC patient. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted with purposive sampling technique from Jan 2017 to April 2020.The study groups consist of 35 OSMF cases, 10 cases of each OSCC and NOM. The samples were immunohistochemically analyzed for expression Ki67 antigen using chi-square test (P < 0.05). RESULTS: The expression of Ki67 was significantly higher in OSMF than that of NOM samples, but less than that of OSCC samples. Present study showed correlation between expression of Ki67 with clinical staging and histological grading both in OSMF and OSCC patients. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrated a high incidence of Ki67 over expression in, OSMF and OSCC. Hence, Ki-67 can be widely used as a proliferation marker to measure growth fraction of cells in OSMF and also for determining the severity of epithelial dysplasia.