Kras Protein Expression in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Potential Marker For Progression and Prognosis

Background objective: emerging evidence suggests that kras could play an important role in squamous cell carcinoma; however, its role in oral squamous cell carcinoma (oscc) is largely unknown. the aim of the current study was to investigate the expression of kras, ki-67, cyclin d1, and bcl2 in oscc and their association with clinicopathological features.methods: forty paraffin blocks of retrospective histologically diagnosed cases of oscc and 20 blocks of oral leukoplakia with epithelial dysplasia were obtained from two hospitals between 2018 and 2021. the paraffin-embedded tissue was analyzed for the expression of kras for oral epithelial dysplasia and oscc, and ki-67, cyclin d1, and bcl2 were analyzed only for oscc. the results were correlated with each other and with different clinicopathological features and were statistically analyzed.results: kras expression was significantly associated with histological tumor grade, tumor extent, presence of nodal and distant metastasis, pathological stage, and the presence of lymphovascular invasion (p=<0.001, 0.001, 0.001, 0.009, <0.001, and <0.001, respectively). the kras expression was positively correlated with the histological grade, tumor extent, nodal status, and the pathological stage (r=0.712, 0.649, 0.646, and 0.865, respectively). a positive correlation was also found with the expression of bcl2, cyclin d1, and ki-67 (r=0.81, 0.723, and 0.698, respectively). the kras expression in oral epithelial dysplasia was significantly lower than that in oscc (p=0.003).conclusion: kras may be a potential prognostic marker for oscc and may play a role in its progression.