Prognostic Role of STAT-3 Upregulation in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Ghazi Osama M1,*, Al-Azzawi Lehadh M.1 1Department of Oral Diagnosis, College of Dentistry, University of Baghdad, Baghdad city, Iraq *Corresponding author: Osama M. Ghazi. Department of Oral Diagnosis, College of Dentistry, University of Baghdad.
Online published on 2 February, 2019. Abstract Oral squamous cell carcinoma is a challenging tumor for clinicians because of its ability to recur and spread despite progressive advancement in treatment options. Researchers studied wide range of histopathological parameters in order to achieve powerful prognosticator enabling them to reduce the consecutive destructive effects on patients with this type of horrible malignancy. Of these parameters, depth of invasion, perineural invasion and lymphovascular invasion have been studied widely. This study was intended to investigate the prognostic effect of STAT-3 overexpression on oral squamous cell carcinoma cells behavior in relation to the depth of invasion, perineural invasion, and lymphovascular invasion. In this retrospective study STAT-3 expression was examined in ffty specimens of primary oral squamous cell carcinomas by immunohistochemistry. The expression labelling indicies then correlated with three histopathological parameters closely related to tumor cell invasion and metastases. Strong expression of STAT-3 was detected in 25 cases, which represent 50% of all cases. The expression of STAT-3 was correlated statistically signifcant with tumor depth of invasion, perineural invasion and lymphovascular invasion. This study suggested that STAT-3 is a powerful signaling contributors for invasive and metastatic ability of OSCC cells. Top Keywords Oral squamous cell carcinoma, STAT-3, depth of invasion, lymphovascular invasion, perineural invasion. Top |