Presentation of Histological Types and Common Sites of Oral Cancers in Lower Sindh

Objectives: to determine the frequency of histological types and common sites of oral cancer in our population of lower sindh. study design: descriptive study. setting: patients reporting at liaquat university hospital, dental out-patient department, jamshoro and hyderabad sindh pakistan, over a period of one year from january 2007 to december 2007. subjects and methods: biopsy specimens were obtained from patients who were suspected for oral cancer on clinical grounds. all specimens were processed routinely and stained by hematoxylin and eosin method. main outcome measures: histopathological analysis was carried out to confirm the diagnosis and to evaluate the histological types. results: mean age of oral cancer patients was 46.28 years. it was more common in males. most common site was cheek mucosa. histopathological analysis showed 47 (44.3%) patients having well-differentiated invasive squamous cell carcinoma while 24 (22.6%) patients had moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. twelve (11.4%) patients had microinvasive carcinoma and 11 (10.5%) specimen revealed mucoepidermoid carcinoma. verrucous carcinoma was observed in 06 (5.7%) patients and 03 (2.8%) patients showed poorly differentiated anaplastic carcinoma. the frequency of carcinoma in situ, neuroendocrine tumor and carcinosarcoma was 1 (0.9%) each. conclusion: this study gives a detailed account of the histological types of oral cancer along with their frequency and reports two rare malignant tumors occurring in oral cavity. oral cancer occurred at a younger age with male preponderance. a higher frequency of mucoepidermoid carcinoma was observed.