Background: Oxidative DNA damage leads to abnormalities in endogenous cellular processes and constitutes a direct link between free radicals, antioxidants and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) method is used to measure antioxidant capacity versus oxygen free radicals. There is no report on the application of ORAC to evaluate salivary antioxidant capacity in patients with head and neck SCC. This study investigated the relation between total antioxidant capacity of saliva, measured with ORAC method, and the incidence, location, size and histopathological grading of SCC.
Methods: Salivary antioxidant capacity was assessed in 30 male and female patients with histopathologically confirmed oral and laryngeal SCC. Histopathological grading of SCC was based on WHO classification.
Results: Mean ORAC in patients with SCC was higher than the mean value in the control group. Statistically significant difference was observed in the study group versus the control group. No significant differences were observed for ORAC values in relation to histopathological grading, tumour size and spread to lymph nodes.
Conclusions: The obtained results can advocate local compensatory mechanism in saliva in response to increased oxidative stress associated with primary tumour. ORAC can become an additional factor in head and neck SCC prognosis, but further investigation is required.
Keywords: antioxidant capacity; oxygen radical absorbance capacity; squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.