title: Salivary Lactate Dehydrogenase (LDH)- A Novel Technique in Oral Cancer Detection and Diagnosis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the sixth most common malignancy which is a major cause for cancer morbidity and mortality worldwide. Early diagnosis and intervention improves the overall survival rate.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The current study was done to evaluate the accuracy of salivary LDH as a potential biomarker for diagnosis of OSCC and to correlate the levels of salivary LDH with the histological differentiation of the tumour.
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty patients visiting the outpatient department diagnosed clinically and histologically with OSCC were selected for the study with a control group of 20 patients. Unstimulated salivary samples collected from the selected patients were centrifuged and processed. Readings of enzyme activity in the salivary samples was established through auto analysis using International Federation of Clinical Chemistry (IFCC) method. Levels of the enzyme activity in both the control and the study group were compared and statistically analysed using student t-test. The three subgroups were also compared and statistically analysed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The results showed a mean value of 497.00 with a SD of 51.75 among the control group and a mean value of 1225.40 with a SD of 221.79 among the cases with a p-value of 0.0001 which was statistically significant. Furthermore, when the LDH values for the various grades of OSCC were compared, the mean values were 1049.07, 1309.50 and 1586.20 respectively, for well differentiated, moderately differentiated and poorly differentiated carcinoma.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The p-value thus obtained revealed LDH values which were significantly higher in patients with OSCC and furthermore the levels significantly correlated with the histopathological grade of the tumour.
authors.affiliation: Consultant, Department of Oral Physician.
authors.forename: Kavyashree
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lokesh
authors.affiliation: Former Professor and Head of Department, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Bangalore Institute of Dental Sciences & Hospital , Bangalore, India .
authors.forename: Jayanthi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kannabiran
authors.affiliation: Reader, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Dayanand Sagar College of Dental Sciences , Bangalore, India .
authors.forename: Mahesh Dathu
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Rao
keywords: Histopathological grade; Oral squamous cell carcinoma; Salivary biomarker