A Comparative Study on the Mast Cells Count in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Normal Oral Mucosa

Introduction: oral squamous cell carcinoma (oscc) is one of the 10 most common malignant tumors and scc accounts 94% of all oral malignancies. mast cells are regarded as complex andmultifunctional cells, playing a significant role in immunopathology. the aim of this study is to evaluate the number of mast cells in tissue sections of oral squamous cell carcinoma (oscc) incomparison with normal mucosa. materials &methods: sixty paraffin-embedded specimens were obtained from the archives of the department of oral and maxillofacial pathology, dental school of babol university of medical science (15 high grade,15 low grade and 30 iritation fibroma). classification of oscc cases was according to the broder`s malignancy grading system. hematoxylin and eosin-stained slides were re-evaluated before entering the samples in our study. toluidine blue (1%) staining was used to identify mast cells in samples. we used spss software version 18 and one way anova test for analyzing data. results: the highest mast cell count was seen in normal tissue and it was higher in low grade oscc in comparison with high grade, but the differences between groups weren’t statistically significant. the mean count of mast cell between oscc and normal oral mucosa was statistically significant different (p=0.019). we didn’t observe any statistically significant difference between mast cell counts of control group and low grade oscc. the same result was seen between high garde and low grade oscc. the mean mast cell count difference between male and female groups weren’t statistically significant. the mean mast cell count difference between high grade oscc and control group was significant (p<0.05). conclusion: according to the results, the average amount of mast cells decreased in oscc in comparison with normal oral mucosa. it does not seem that mast cells play an important role in tumor progression, although further study is needed.