Keratins in oral cancer; An overview

Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) is an aggressive epithelial malignancy which has a rising incidence in the developing countries. Karachi South has reported OSCC as the second most common cancer in both genders according to 2002 statistics.It has a high mortality rate and is usually diagnosed at late stages. Precise and early diagnosis of OSCC by pathologists is important for optimum patient management. Keratins formerly known as cytokeratins are epithelial predominant intermediate filament proteins. They are a component of the keratin containing intermediate filaments in the intra cytoplasmic skeleton of epithelial cells.Keratins maintain structural integrity of epithelial cells and have certain regulatory functions as well. The expression of various keratins is found to be altered during and after the neoplastic transformation in oral malignancy and several of these can be used in immunohistochemical diagnosis and also in classification and subtyping of oral tumors.Therefore, differential expression of various keratins is extensively used in routine diagnostic pathology for precise categorization of oral cancer and also have been shown to have prognostic value. Key Words: Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Keratins, Immunohistochemistry, Epithelium