ABSTRACT
Nowadays for diagnosis of cancerous and precancerous lesions, immunohistochemistry method and cellular markers can use besides common. Staining, which in current conditions of these methods since the cost of these ways are expensive, we should search for the ways of easier and cheaper diagnostic test such as silver nitrate staining, for inspection of nucleolar organizer regions. Silver nitrate staining was carried out for nucleolar organizer regions in 30 paraffin- embedded oral squamous cell carcinoma, 30 paraffin embedded oral dysplasia. One hundred nuclei were counted randomly for AgNORs dot with x100 magnifications. Thirty samples of normal oral epithelium were selected from normal margins of the same tumors. The mean [ +/- SD] number of the dots in normal oral epithelium was 1.54 [ +/- 0.22], in oral dysplasia was 2.46 [ +/- 0.51] and in oral squamous cell carcinoma was 3.34 [ +/- 0.67]. There was a statistically significant relationship between different groups [p=0.000]. There was no considerable usefulness in evaluation of sensitivity and specify of this method of staining for normal oral epithelium. About oral dysplasia estimated that sensitivity was 70% but specifity was 50% and about oral SCC, sensitivity was 90% and specify was 75%. AgNORs count is a useful method for detecting of oral squamous cell carcinoma, oral dysplasia and normal oral epithelium. Also, it seems that with regard to high sensitivity and specifies of this method in 0 SCC, it can be used as a reliable aid beside the common methods