Evaluation of tissue eosinophils in different grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma using h&e and sirus red stain

Aim: To quantitatively evaluate and compare tumor associated tissue eosinophils in different grades of Oral Squamous cell Carcinoma by using H&E and Sirius Red Stain.
Materials and Methods: The study group consisted of totally 33 histopathologically diagnosed cases of Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Sections of 4µ thickness were made from each of the paraffin embedded tissues used in the study and were stained with H & E and Sirius Red Stain. Tumor associated tissue eosinophils (TATE) were counted using binocular light microscope equipped with square ocular grid.
Statistical Analysis:
To compare tumor associated tissue eosinophilia (TATE) among different histological grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma, one way ANOVA using SPSS software was used. To compare the specificity between Hematoxylin & Eosin and Sirius Red stain for the detection of TATE, Student’s -T test was used. P values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.
Results: Tumor associated tissue eosinophilia (TATE) values were counted and compared within different histological grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma and no statistically significant (P > 0.05) difference was found using both stains. However, a decreasing trend in average number of TATE per 10 high power fields (hpf) was found from well differentiated grade towards poorly differentiated grade. The specificity of Sirius Red for TATE detection was found to be highly significant (< 0.05%) as compare to H&E stain.
Conclusion: The results of decreasing levels of TATE with the advancing grade of SCC correspond to anti- tumor role of eosinophils, which still require further research to understand the mechanism of host response to malignancy so that TATE can be used as new immunological therapeutic measure for the cancer treatment.