ABSTRACT
Background Oral submucous fibrosis (OSF), a potentially malignant disorder, is a chronic, inflammatory, progressive debilitating disease of the oral cavity with a multifactorial etiology. As an inflammatory response, more fibrinogen and its degradation products are produced by the body in OSF patients. Detection of these plasma fibrinogen degradation products (FDP) in OSF patients has contributed a new direction to enlighten the etiopathogenesis of OSF. Objectives To ascertain the role of FDP of OSF patients in betel nut chewers and in control subjects and also to estimate serum levels of proteins in the patients. Materials & Methods The study included 25 clinically diagnosed oral submucous fibrosis patients with betel nut chewing habit & 25 healthy controls without any deleterious habits. All the patients were evaluated for fibrinogen degradation productions and total serum protein concentration (TSP) by agglutination and Biuret method respectively. The results were analysed using unpared ttest and Pearson chi square test. Results The study revealed an increased FDP level in all the betel nut chewers with OSF when compared with the healthy individuals. There was a marginal increase in Total serum Protein concentration levels in OSF patients, thus inferring to a positive correlation between FDP and TSP in all OSF cases. Conclusion This study validates the relationship of plasma FDPs in the etiology of OSF and can be used to measure the prognosis of the disease. Plasma FDP may also be useful as a nonsurgical diagnostic tool in suspected OSF cases without necessitating a histopathological confirmation. However, further studies with a larger sample size may be required to elucidate the precise role of plasma FDP levels and detailed fractional analysis of protein in OSF, thus facilitating to obtain more conclusive results. It can be suggested that biochemical assessment of patients with areca nut chewing habit may help in the earlier diagnosis of OSMF and thus may lead to a better prognosis of these lesions.
ABSTRACT
Aim & Objective The aim of the study was to evaluate the levels of serum folate and homocysteine in clinical stages of Oral submucous fibrosis (OSF) patients. Methodology The study sample comprised of 40 clinically and histopathologically diagnosed OSF patients those who are not undergoing treatment and 10 healthy controls. OSF was categorised by clinical staging. Serum foliate and homocysteine levels estimation was done by reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography analysis unit and chemiluminescence immuno assay, respectively. Results were statistically analysed using one-way ANOVA [Analysis of variance]. Results Irrespective of age and gender, serum folate deficiency and high levels of homocysteine were noted in OSF patients when compared with healthy controls. Conclusion Serum hyper homocysteinemia and folate deficiency were noted with the progression of the disease. Folate supplements can be given to decrease the levels of homocysteine, to arrest the progression of the disease. However, further longitudinal studies are needed to establish an association between serum homocysteine and serum folate.