ABSTRACT Introduction: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a multifaceted disease distinguished by varying degrees of tumour aggressiveness and patient outcomes. This study investigates the correlation between histopathological parameters like lymph node metastasis (LNM), lymphovascular invasion (LVI) and pathological TNM staging with tumour–stroma ratio (TSR) and peri-tumoural lymphocytic infiltrates (PLI) in OSCC. Materials and Methods: A total of 60 patients with OSCC who underwent surgical resection were included in the study. TSR was classified as TSR low (80% based on the presence of infiltrates in the invasive margin of the tumour. Results: Observed mean age of the study was 54 years with an M:F ratio of 1:2.3. Amongst the 60 cases studied, 3 (5%), 13 (21.7%), 13 (21.7%) and 31 (51.6%) cases belonged to TNM Stages I, II, III and IV, respectively. 26 (43.4%) cases showed LNM. 38 (63.3%) showed low TSR, while 22 (36.7%) cases showed high TSR values. 24 (40%), 23 (38.3%) and 13 (21.7%) cases showed PLI scores of 80%, respectively. Tumour size <40 mm showed significantly low TSR values (P = 0.007), meanwhile LVI-positive cases showed high TSR values (P = 0.016). Low PLI scoring showed significant correlation with higher TNM stages (P = 0.001) and nodal metastasis (P < 0.00001). Conclusion: TSR and PLI can be considered an additional significant parameters to the TNM staging since they are easily observable on standard haematoxylin and eosin (H and E)-stained slides.
Khumanthem et al. (Thu,) studied this question.