Histopathological Factors in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma-Should a Clinician Look Beyond Clinical Staging?

Several researchers have proposed and investigated the prognostic implications of various parameters, but have failed to provide concrete evidence regarding the inclusion or exclusion of histopathological features while clinically managing an oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) case. The study purpose was to measure the prognostic values of a set of key histologic features and its association with its clinical outcome-5-year survival.

This is a prospective cohort study and the sample was composed of patients treated for OSCC (April 2014 - March 2015). The predictor variables included pattern of tumor invasion (POI), stromal inflammation, angiogenesis, and vascular invasion with the outcome being survival of subjects observed over this 5-year period. Sociodemographic data (age, sex, marital status, systemic disease, habits etc), clinical staging and TNM staging were also recorded. We used multivariate regression analysis for predictor analysis; Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox hazard modeling was also performed using the data.

This article includes 50 subjects with a mean age of 54.94 years and 58% were male and their characteristics collected at the baseline and at a 12-, 24-, 36-, 48-, and 60-month follow-up. The overall 5-year survival was 48%. We saw a significant association between N-stage and POI (0.027), T-stage and mean vascular density (0.042), and T-stage and vascular invasion (0.046). POI, angiogenesis, and vascular invasion were found as significant predictors of overall 5-year survival (P < .001).

This study shows that histopathological parameters such as POI are important while determining the clinical outcome of OSCC. Histopathological parameters such as angiogenesis and vascular invasion can provide valuable information about the overall survival and prognosis.