• Trace Elements of Copper and Zinc in saliva of patients with OSCC
  • Ahmadreza mirzaei,1,* Arezoo aghakouchakzadeh,2
    1. Student Research Committee, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran
    2. Assistant Professor, Department of oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, School of Dentistry, Alborz University of Medical Science, Karaj, Iran ,


  • Introduction: There are growing appeals for understanding the role of trace elements in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) diagnosis and tumor progression. The aim of this study is the comparison of copper (Cu) and zinc (Zn) concentrations in saliva of patients with OSCC and healthy individuals and the comparison of these trace. elements among the patients with different histopathological grades and clinical stages of OSCC.
  • Methods: In this case-control study 30 patients with OSCC in different grades and stages and 30 healthy individuals as a control group were recruited. Unstimulated saliva of the participants was collected using spitting method. The Spectrophotometric Method was used to determine the salivary Cu and Zn and concentrations. Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal Wallis, T-test and ANOVA test were used to analyze the data. Significant differences were reported in p-values less than 0.05.
  • Results: There was a significant decrease in salivary level of Zn in the OSCC group in comparison to the control group (p<0.05). However, the salivary levels of Cu increased significantly for the same comparison (p<0.05). The different salivary levels of above elements among patients with well differentiation, well to moderate and moderate OSCC were insignificant (p>0.05). There were no significant differences in salivary levels of Cu and Zn between patients with first, second and third clinical stage (p>0.05).
  • Conclusion: This study indicated the salivary Cu and Zn alterations in newly diagnosed patients with OSCC. however, the role of these elements in tumor progression is still unclear. Overall these findings are in accordance with findings reported by Balpande et al. Also our findings are similar to Carausu et al. 2016 who found a significant increase in levels of Cu and decrease in levels of Zn in saliva and serum of 35 patients with oral cancer in comparison to the control group. Understanding the changes in metabolism of Cu and Zn occurring in the oral epithelium cells of tumor can be an orientation toward finding new diagnostic/prognostic biomarkers or a new intervention for prevention/ treatment of OSCC.
  • Keywords: OSCC, Zinc, Copper, saliva