Assessment of epithelial–mesenchymal transition signatures in oral submucous fibrosis

Background: Recently, the concept of field cancerization has questioned the accuracy of biopsy site selection clinically. Oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) has a global malignant transformation rate of 7.6% despite having less dysplastic changes clinically or histologically. Hence, this study was undertaken to evaluate the expression of vimentin, epithelial-cadherin (E-Cad) and collagen IV in OSMF, using immunohistochemistry and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Materials and Methods: One hundred and eighty- five patients with OSMF (61), with habits and no OSMF (61) and patients without habit and OSMF (63) were subjected to biopsy for sample collection. The samples were analyzed immunohistochemically for vimentin, E-Cad and collagen IV. The PCR values for vimentin and E-Cad were also done. Results: Vimentin expression was increased in OSMF patients, whereas E-Cad expression was decreased in OSMF patients. Conclusion: Epithelial–mesenchymal transition signatures are definitely positive in OSMF cases.