ABSTRACT

Introduction: Myofibroblasts are spindle shaped smooth muscle like fibroblast involved in the physiological repair of tissue structure can also cause pathological remodeling of tissue by forming fibrosis. They express smooth muscle actin which can be evaluated for their biological behavior in the physiological and pathological conditions. Objective: To evaluate the expression of Myofibroblasts in oral submucous fibrosis, oral squamous cell carcinoma and normal mucosa by Immunohistochemical analysis. Methods and materials: It is a cross-sectional study done to evaluate the expression of Myofibroblasts in oral submucous fibrosis (Group-I), oral squamous cell carcinoma (Group-II) and normal buccal mucosa (Group-III) using immunohistochemistry using alpha smooth muscle actin in formalin fixed, paraffin embedded tissue specimens. The staining intensity, labeling index and staining index was calculated among the three groups and compared. Results: The gender distributions in the study were in favor of males. It was observed that staining intensity and labeling index was seen more in group I than in group II and progressively increased from early to advance stage of oral submucous fibrosis. Higher staining intensity was observed in well differentiated oral squamous cell carcinoma. Conclusion: Myofibroblasts are important in normal healing process, but can induce fibrosis. In oral submucous fibrosis, they can be used to assess the severity of the lesion by their increased expression of alpha smooth muscle actin. In oral carcinogenesis increase in the number of alpha smooth muscle actin can change the distribution pattern results in tumor invasive characteristics. Keywords: Alpha smooth muscle actin, Myofibroblasts, Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Oral Submucous Fibrosis, Staining intensity
Publication date: 01/06/2023

https://ijbpas.com/pdf/2023/June/MS_IJBPAS_2023_7056.pdf

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https://doi.org/10.31032/IJBPAS/2023/12.6.7056