Serum Advanced Oxidation Protein Products (Aopp) in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (Oscc): Possible Markers of Diagnostic Significance

Abstract

The aim of this study was to measure the concentrations/levels of serum, total proteins and advanced oxidation protein products as the markers of oxidant mediated protein damage in the sera of patients with oral cancers. The study consisted of the sera analysis of serum total protein, albumin and advanced oxidation protein products’ levels in 30 age and sex-matched controls, 60 patients with reported pre-cancerous lesions and/or conditions and 60 patients with histologically proven oral squamous cell carcinoma. One-way analyses of variance were used to test the difference between groups. To find out which of the two group’s means are significantly different, post-hoc test of Bonferroni test was used. The results were averaged as mean ± standard deviation. In the above test, p-values less than 0.05 were taken to be statistically significant. The normality of data was checked before the statistical analysis was performed. The study revealed variations in serum levels of advanced oxidation protein products to be statistically significant (p < 0.001). Serum levels of total protein showed extensive variations in the study and the results were largely inconclusive and statistically insignificant. The results obtained emphasize the need for more studies with larger sample sizes to be conducted before a conclusive role could be drawn in favor of sera levels of total protein and advanced oxidation protein products as markers of diagnostic significance and of the transition from various oral pre-cancerous lesions and conditions into frank oral cancers.