TheRole of Silver Staining Nucleolar
Organiser Regions (AgNORs) in
Lesions of the Oral Cavity
1011-1015
Correspondence
Sandhya Panjeta Gulia
H.no 40/4, Inderpuri, Ramlila ground,
Jacobpura, Gurgaon, Haryana
Phone: 09394134207
Facsimile: 09394537104
E-mail: sandhya_path@yahoo.com
Aims and Objectives: • To establish the role of AgNORs in differentiating the benign from the pre-malignant and the malignant lesions of the oral cavity. • To establish the degree / grade of malignancy according to the AgNOR count. • To predict the probable prognosis of the cases on the basis of the AgNOR count, if possible.
Materials and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on 100 cases from July 2006 – July 2007 on the biopsies which were obtained from the oral mucosa. Two slides were prepared for each case – one was stained with the haematoxylin and eosin stain and the other was subjected to silver staining. The data was analyzed by using the independent T-test and ANOVA for the intergroup comparisons.
Results: The results showed that the mean AgNOR count of the carcinomas was significantly higher than that of the normal oral epithelium, the hyperplastic lesions, papillomas and the leukoplakias (p < 0.05). The AgNOR dots tend to be small, homogenously stained and regular in the benign lesions and as the grade of the tumour increased, the AgNOR dots became irregular, large dots or bizarre clusters.
Conclusions: AgNOR staining can be considered as a useful adjunct to diagnostic pathology. This study was helpful in evaluating the importance of AgNORs in differentiating the benign, pre-malignant and malignant lesions of the oral cavity and it could be considered as a valuable tool along with the histopathological criteria for the evaluation of the proliferative activity of the cell.