Immunohistochemical expression of CD57 in different histopathological grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Background and Aim: In general, the natural killer (NK) cells are considered to represent the innate immune system and act as the vital effector of lymphocytes. Natural killer cells (NK) cells target and destroy tumour-causing cells. The purpose of this study is to analyse the immunohistochemical expression of CD57 in different histopathological grades of Oral Squamous cell Carcinoma (OSCC). Materials and Methods: Thirty archival blocks were selected from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and Oral Microbiology, Vinayaka Mission's Sankarachariyar Dental College, Salem comprising 10 histologically proven cases of Well, Moderately and Poorly differentiated OSCC each. Results: Statistical analysis of results were done. P value of Chi-square test for the overall staining expression in 30 OSCCs was 0.001 and highly significant. On comparing the positive and negative staining of well and poorly-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma, the P value obtained by Chi-square analysis was 0.001 and was highly significant. When well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma was compared with moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma and when moderately differentiated squamous cell carcinoma was compared with poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma, the P value was insignificant. Conclusion: Our results concluded that the CD57 biomarker gives the impression of being a good indicator of the immune status of the patient and the aggressiveness of the lesion. Results can be improvised in future studies with increased sample size and clinical correlation.