Oral cancer is increasing in prevalence and its treatment is associated with high degree of morbidity and mortality. Thus, prevention of oral cancer is of utmost importance. Chemoprevention is the use of natural, synthetic, or biologic compounds to halt, reverse, or prevent the initial phases of carcinogenesis or the progression of neoplastic cells to cancer. This modality has been extensively researched in the last two decades for the prevention of oral cancer with the emergence of new information. Retinoids were the first chemopreventive agents to be tested in clinical settings. Since then, a number of new agents such as COX2 inhibitors, EGFR inhibitors, p53 targeted agents, thiazolidinediones and several natural agents have shown promise in oral cancer prevention. Chemopreventive trials in oral cancer tend to be long term studies and are thus challenging. This review article looks into the clinical evidence for the application of chemopreventive agents in clinical settings and also highlights the recent trends in oral cancer chemopreventive trials.
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Expression of Cyclin D1 in Oral Leukoplakia Compared with Normal Mucosa, Benign and Malignant Tumors of the Oral Cavity
Introduction: Cyclin D1 is a rate-limiting controller of the G1 phase and the G1 to S transition of the cell cycle. It’s overexpression may cause disturbance in the normal cell cycle, which may lead to an increased proliferation and consecutive tumour formation. Our objective was to analyse the expression of Cyclin D1 in oral leukoplakia – the most frequent potentially malignant disorder of the oral mucosa – in comparison with normal mucosa, benign and malignant tumours of the oral cavity.
Material and methods: For this paper 51 consecutive cases of oral leukoplakia – surgically treated at the Oro-Maxillo-Facial Surgery Clinic from Târgu Mureş – and, for comparison 9 benign tumours and 27 oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs) were selected. Eight normal mucosa samples were obtained from the peripheral regions of the benign tumours, excized with safe surgical margins. Histopathologically leukoplakias were graded as: with no, mild, moderate or severe dysplasia (G0-3), and OSCCs as: well-, moderately- or poorly-differentiated (G1-3). After immunohistochemical staining for Cyclin D1, statistical analysis was performed regarding the expression of the studied marker.
Results and conclusions: In our findings the difference between the expression of Cyclin D1 in normal mucosa, benign tumours and leukoplakias with no dysplasia was not significant, but the expression of this marker increased significantly with the increase of the grade of dysplasia in case of leukoplakias. A statistically significant difference was found also between leukoplakias and OSCCs, without any correlation regarding the histopathological grade of OSCCs.