Development of Metastatic Risk Assessment Model for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma by Clinico pathologic Phenotypic and Molecular Characterization

Abstract

The present research developed a combined clinico-pathologic, phenotypic, and molecular predictive model to assess the metastatic risk of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC). Clinical data of metastatic and non-metastatic OSCC (20 cases each) such as age at diagnosis, gender, site of the primary lesion, tobacco habits, and clinical staging was considered for the predictive model development. The semi-quantitative histopathological and immunohistochemical examination of the risk factors showed a significant increase in metastatic OSCC. Quantification analysis of these parameters using texture and color segmentation revealed significant results using MATLAB image processing. The ROC curve has provided a new cut-off score of 12 for tumor bud, beyond which the metastatic risk of OSCC is considered as high grade. The study has also demonstrated that depth of invasion is an excellent variable to be considered for metastatic risk assessment.