Background: Recent years have witnessed an increasing emphasis on the role of nuclear DNA and its application in experimental pathological diagnosis to predict prognosis and management of certain neoplasm.
Aims: to establish objective criteria for the degree of differentiation and histochemical quantitative of nuclear DNA of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) using microspectrophotometric analysis.
Material and methods: The study was conducted on histologic materials from patient with OSCC. Two histological grading systems were used; Broder's and invasive front grading system were recorded. Microspectrophotometry was applied on Feulgen-stained sections to determine the quality of tumour nuclear DNA content in two different histological grading systems of OSCC.
Results: Nuclear DNA content increased significantly with decreasing tissue differentiation as well with increasing tumour size.
Conclusion: The grading system and DNA content provides more objective and accurate criteria which relate the morphologic finding to biologic activity and growth patterns of oral cancer as compared to histologic differentiation alone.