Richa Dubey, Gaurav Dubey, Bimleshwar Kumar
BACKGROUND The presence and degree of dysplasia are often used to predict malignant transformation. Among these the p53 tumour suppressor gene, which deserves particular attention not only because of its central role in genomic stability and cell cycle regulation, but also in the case of oral mucosa in pre-invasive stages. Mutation of p53 gene is one of the most common events in oral carcinogenesis. This suggests that p53 gene mutation may be an early step in the malignant conversion of oral dysplastic lesions The objectives of this study were- 1. To study p53 expression in relation to proliferative status in normal and dysplastic lesions of the oral mucosa 2. To determine whether a correlation exists between the accumulation of p53 and the degree of epithelial dysplasia present in oral leukoplakia. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study group comprised of 60 subjects in which 30 cases were of oral leukoplakia and 30 healthy individuals were in control group without white patch on oral mucosa. Study was done in Ambedkar Dental College, Patna. RESULTS Both the groups were evaluated for epithelial dysplasia histopathologically and accordingly labelled as mild, moderate and severe dysplasia as per Shafer criteria. In the control group 100% of the subjects depicted no dysplasia. Out of 30 subjects in the study group, 21 (70%) had mild, 7 (23.3%) had moderate and 2 (6.7%) subjects had severe dysplasia. CONCLUSION Expression of p53 was absent in subjects with no dysplasia, but overexpression of p53 was observed in dysplasia. p53 protein level was highly significant in moderate and severe dysplasias.
