Heat Shock Protein 27 (HSP27) as a Potential Prognostic Marker: Immunohistochemical Analysis of Oral Epithelial Dysplasia and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Karthikeyan Ramalingam; Gurveen Chawla; Abhiney Puri; Murugesan Krishnan; Tania Aneja; Kaajal Gill

doi:10.7759/cureus.33020

Heat Shock Protein 27 (HSP27) as a Potential Prognostic Marker: Immunohistochemical Analysis of Oral Epithelial Dysplasia and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Cureus. 2022 Dec 27;14(12):e33020. doi: 10.7759/cureus.33020. eCollection 2022 Dec.

Authors

Karthikeyan Ramalingam¹, Gurveen Chawla², Abhiney Puri³, Murugesan Krishnan⁴, Tania Aneja⁵, Kaajal Gill²

Affiliations

¹ Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, IND.
² Oral Pathology, Surendera Dental College and Research Institute, Sriganganagar, IND.
³ Oral Pathology, Himachal Institute of Dental Sciences, Paonta Sahib, IND.
⁴ Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, IND.
⁵ Dentistry, Department of Medical Health and Family Welfare, Uttarakhand, IND.

Abstract

Aim: To evaluate and correlate the expression of heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) in oral epithelial dysplasia (ED) and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Materials and methods: This immunohistochemical study of HSP27 expression was performed on 45 samples retrieved from the departmental archives. It included 15 cases of oral ED, 15 cases of OSCC and 15 cases of epithelial hyperplasia (EH). The staining intensity and distribution were scored. The expression was compared between the study groups. Kruskal-Wallis Test, Mann-Whitney U Test and Chi-square tests were performed for statistical analysis using SPSS v21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). Results: There was a statistically significant difference in HSP27 staining parameters between EH, oral ED and OSCC. There was no significant difference between oral ED and OSCC. Conclusion: HSP27 expression shows enhanced expression in oral ED and OSCC. Its expression should be investigated using larger sample sizes with clinico-pathological correlation to prove its efficiency as a prognostic marker. It will help us in defining treatment modalities so that mortality and morbidity associated with OSCC could be reduced.

Keywords: dysplasia; heat shock proteins; hsp27; oral cancer; prognosis.