Impact of the Immunohistochemistry on appraisal of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Cervical Lymph Nodes Metastasis

This study intends to compare the efficacy of traditional hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining and immunohistochemistry (IHC) in the assessment of primary oral squamous cell carcinoma and detection of lymph node (LN) occult metastasis. The primary tumor sections of 80 patients diagnosed with primary OSCC and lymph nodes of 50 patients were treated with neck dissection were subjected to routine H&E staining and IHC (CK5/6) staining. Sections were analyzed for different pathological parameters and nodal metastasis. Metastatic carcinomatous cells were observed in 14.3% of IHC sections compared to 13.5% of H&E sections. Except for tumor grade, statistical analysis for patients' age, gender, tumor diameter, tumor thickness (TT), and depth of invasion (DOI) revealed no significant correlation with lymph node status. IHC is more sensitive to detecting lymph node occult metastasis than H&E staining in conventional procedures.