Immunological status of metastatic and non metastatic lymph nodes in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Aim: Lymph node morphology does reflect certain parameters of immune responses. The study was aimed to evaluate, compare, and correlate the morphological changes and the type of immune responses in paraffin embedded lymph node sections of patients diagnosed with metastatic and non-metastatic oral squamous cell carcinoma. Methods: This study constituted a total of 29 histopathologically proven metastatic and 31 non-metastatic cases obtained from 60 oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. These 60 cases yielded a total of 429 lymph node sections which were subjected to haematoxylin and eosin stain. All the 429 sections were analyzed for the type of immune response (cell mediated or humoral response) based on the morphological changes. Results: Data analysis using chi-square test yielded a highly significant result in immunological status in the lymph node sections of metastatic oral squamous cell carcinoma in contrast to non-metastatic oral squamous cell carcinoma. Conclusion: The study highlights the status of the immune system related to the prognosis of the patient and a comprehensive treatment protocol over the conventional methods of examination of lymph node. Thus the recent study concluded that the histopathological lymph node pattern may serve as a surrogate marker in predicting the metastasis and thus enhancing the survival of the patients.