Morphohistometric analysis of advancing tumor fronts in malignancies associated with oral submucous fibrosis.

The objective of this study was to address retrospectively the invasive tumor fronts of epithelial neoplasms associated with OSF and non-associated tumors. Review of a data base of 25 OSF patients who have had concurrent oral squamous cell carcinoma served as the test sample. The controls constituted an equal number of age standardized (roughly) squamous cell carcinomas, non-associated with OSF. The diagnsis and grading were performed based on established criteria. Altogether a total of 8 histopathological variables were evaluated related to the advancing tumor fronts. After selection of cut-off levels, single parameter analysis by means of univariate test revealed significant result in none. A Total Malignancy Score (TMS) of 14.98 and 15.13(mean) were recorded for test and control respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that degree of nuclear plemorphism (p=0.015) and the pattern of invasion (p=0.003) were the only two variables which significantly affected the TMS. OSF associated tumors did not show features unique to it and therefore its response to therapy need not vary significantly from conventional cases.