Survey of mast cell density in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma and laryngeal dysplasia

The role of mast cells in carcinogenesis is improved in many malignant neoplasms but there are scanty literature which show the role of these cells in pathogenesis of progression of dysplastic lesion to invasive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The aim of this study was comparison of mast cell density between squamous cell carcinoma and dysplastic laryngeal mucosa to investigate mast cell role.

In this study, 20 paraffin blocks of SCC, 18 blocks of dysplastic mucous and 18 blocks of normal mucous of larynx were selected and stained by toluidine blue. After mast cell counting per surface unit by two observer, the averages of mast cells density for each groups were obtained and compared using ANOVA test for absolute counting and Kruskal-Wallis for rank counting.

In absolute counting, average of mast cells per surface unit was 11±9.33, 10.67±10.11 and 8±4.68 in SCC, dysplastic mucous and normal mucous, respectively, that did not show any significant difference between the groups (p=0.493) There was also no significant differences between the groups by rank counting (p=0.132).

According to obtained results from this study, participation of mast cells in carcinogenesis process in premalignant lesions and advanced tumor did not show a difference, in other words, carcinogenic activity of mast cells may be at early stages of pre-malignancy.