Aim: To study the expression of Epithelial Glycoprotein (EGP40) in various grades of Oral Epithelial Dysplasia namely mild, moderate and severe epithelial dysplasia and in various grades of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) namely well, moderate & in poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma.
Material and methods: This laboratory study comprised of 47 samples in which 27 samples were of three different grades of OSCC, Well (n=10), Moderate (n=10) and Poorly differentiated (n=7) and remaining 20 samples were of three different grades of dysplasia [Mild (n=7), Moderate (n=8), Severe dysplasia (n=5)]. All the 47 cases were subjected to immunohistochemical staining to evaluate the expression of EGP40. Chi square was used to analyze the significance of differences in different grades of oral epithelial dysplasia & in different grades of OSCC.
Results: The percentage of EGP40 immuno positivity was increased from mild to severe dysplasia and the percentage of EGP40 immuno positivity was increased from well to poorly differentiated carcinoma No statistical significance was observed in the immunoreactivity and in the intensity of expression between various grades of oral epithelial dysplasia and oral squamous cell carcinoma.
Conclusion: The epithelial cell adhesion molecule can be considered as an early marker for predicting malignant transformation of dysplastic epithelial lesions and used as a marker in predicting the OSCC prognosis.
Keywords: EGP40; oral potentially malignant; oral squamous cell carcinoma.