[Relationship between proliferative activity, and tissue differentiation and invasive mode in human oral squamous...

The proliferative activity of carcinoma cells is generally considered to relate to the degree of the malignancy of carcinoma tissues. In this study, the proliferative activity at the tumor-stromal border was studied in 17 cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and in 30 cases of colorectal adenocarcinoma (CAC) by means of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) immunostaining, to evaluate the correlation between proliferative activity and tissue differentiation or invasive mode at the tumor-stromal border. No statistical difference was detected between the PCNA labelling index (PI) and the tissue differentiation of both OSCC and CAC. A significant difference was demonstrated between PI and invasive mode in OSCC, suggesting that the invasive mode at the tumor-stromal border relate to the degree of the malignancy of carcinoma tissues. However, no significance was found between PI and invasive mode of CAC. In addition, no difference of PI was demonstrated between tissue differentiation or invasive mode, and vascular invasion or lymph node metastasis. Therefore, it seems likely that the invasive mode at the tumor-stromal border in CAC also has no significance in deciding the degree of the malignancy of carcinoma tissues.