Correlation of salivary lactate dehydrogenase with histopathological findings and tumor staging of squamous cell carcinomas in the head and neck region

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Background: Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is an important enzyme and is recently being investigated in various orodental pathologies. The present study was carried out to investigate whether there is any correlation between LDH with the various histopathological gradings. Materials and Methods: Saliva was collected between 9 and 10 AM from patients of head and neck cancers (HNCs). Concomitantly, saliva was also collected from age matched healthy volunteers for comparing the results of the study population. Saliva collected from both the cohorts were processed and evaluated for LDH levels using standard kit. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance and with Bonferroni multiple comparison. A value of P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The results indicate that when compared to the healthy individuals, a significant increase was observed in the salivary LDH of cancer patients (280.55 ± 17.48 vs. 353.58 ± 30.19; P < 0.001). A significant difference was also observed with differentiation, size, nodal status and metastasis (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: The results indicate that salivary LDH is helpful as an adjunct to the standard histopathological grading in the diagnosis and prognosis of HNCs.