Correlation of cytokeratin 19 expressions to histological grading of oral submucous fibrosis: an immunohistochemical study

Introduction: Immunohistochemical studies have become one of the stepping stones to establish new surrogate markers to analyse the malignant transformation of a potentially malignant disorder to malignancy

Objective: The histological grading of oral submucous fibrosis has been made as grade 1,2 and 3 according to severity of fibrosis and hyalinization but the intensity of immunohistochemical staining of cytokeratin 19 has not been done to analyse and establish the fact whether the intensity increases according to histologic severity.

Material and methods: 35 cases of OSF were histologically graded and immunohistochemical study was done using cytokeratin 19.The P value were calculated using Fisher’s Exact tests.

Results: Among 35 cases 11 cases of grade 1 showed 18.1% of negetive, 36.3% of mild, 36.3% of moderate and 9% of intense staining. 9 cases of Grade 2 showed 11.1% of negative, 33.3% of mild, 33.3% of moderate and 22.2% of intense staining. 15 cases of Grade 3 showed 13.3% negative, 26.6% mild, 40% moderate and 20% intense staining. The overall and comparative P values were insignificant.

Conclusion: Cytokeratin 19 staining alone cannot be used as a surrogate marker to check the severity and transformation of OSF to OSCC in different histologic grades of OSF.