Evaluation of salivary sialic acid, total protein, and total sugar in oral cancer: a preliminary report.

AIM: Detection of cancer at the early stage is of utmost importance to decrease the morbidity and mortality of the disease. Apart from the conventional biopsy, noninvasive methods like analysis of saliva may provide a cost-effective approach for screening a large population. Thus, this study aimed to estimate salivary levels of sialic acid, total protein, and total sugar in the oral cancer patients and in healthy control group to evaluate their role in diagnosis and prognosis of oral cancer. STUDY DESIGN: Unstimulated whole saliva samples were collected from 30 healthy controls (Group I) and 30 squamous cell carcinoma patients (group II). Estimations of salivary levels of sialic acid, total protein, and total sugar were performed. This was correlated histopathologically with the grades of carcinoma. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS: The Student's ' t ' test and multivariate regression analysis were performed. The results showed that salivary levels of total protein, total sugar, protein-bound sialic acid, and free sialic acid were significantly higher in oral cancer patients compared to those of normal healthy controls ( P values in all the results were less than 0.001). The salivary free sialic acid levels were found to be significantly higher in well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma than in moderately differentiated carcinoma ( P < 0.001). However, protein-bound sialic acid, total proteins, and total sugars did not show any statistical significance between well and moderately differentiated carcinomas. CONCLUSION: Biochemical analysis of saliva can be used in early detection of cancer and is best correlated with histopathological degree of squamous cell carcinoma.

Lipid peroxidation and antioxidant systems in the blood of young rats subjected to chronic fluoride toxicity.

Wistar albino rats were exposed to 30 or 100 ppm fluoride in drinking water during their fetal, weanling and post-weaning stages of life up to puberty. Extent of lipid peroxidation and response of the antioxidant systems in red blood cells and plasma to prolonged fluoride exposure were assessed in these rats in comparison to the control rats fed with permissible level (0.5 ppm) of fluoride. Rats treated with 100 ppm fluoride showed enhanced lipid peroxidation as evidenced by elevated malondialdehyde (MDA) levels in red blood cells but, 30 ppm fluoride did not cause any appreciable change in RBC MDA level. 30 ppm fluoride-intake resulted in increased levels of total and reduced glutathione in red blood cells and ascorbic acid in plasma while 100 ppm fluoride resulted in decreases in these levels. The activity of RBC glutathione peroxidase was elevated in both the fluoride-treated groups, more pronounced increase was seen with 100 ppm. Reduced to total glutathione ratio in RBC and uric acid levels in plasma decreased in both the groups. RBC superoxide dismutase activity decreased significantly on high-fluoride treatment. These results suggest that long-term high-fluoride intake at the early developing stages of life enhances oxidative stress in the blood, thereby disturbing the antioxidant defense of rats. Increased oxidative stress could be one of the mediating factors in the pathogenesis of toxic manifestations of fluoride.