Expression And Clinical Significance Of Ezrin In Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objective: To investigate the expression level of Ezrin in human oral squamous cell carcinoma(OSCC) and to evaluate the expression and clinical significance relative to clinical and pathological features.Methods: The expression of Ezrin in 52 cases of OSCC and 30 cases of normal oral squamous tissue was detected by immunohistochemistry using SP staining.The correlation of each score according to the intensity and percentage of labeled cells or intercellular substance with relevant clinical date was statistically analyzed.Results: The expression level of Ezrin was significantly higher in OSCC than that in normal oral squamous tissue(p<0.01). The expression of Ezrin was higher in poor-differentiated OSCC than in well-differentiated ones (p<0.05). The expression level of Ezrin was higher in the cases with lymphatic metastasis than the ones without lymphatic metastasis(p<0.01). Ezrin expressed higher in later stage group than in early stage group which were classified by clinical stages(p<0.05). However, the expression of Ezrin was not related to the genders, ages of the patients or the length, localization of carcinoma(p>0.05).Conclusions: The positive expression of Ezrin was highly related to lymphatic metastasis, tumor differentiation and clinical stages. Ezrin protein would be a new target marker to evaluate the tumor prognosis.