Abstract

Background: Despite various advancements for screening, detection, prevention, and
treatment of Oral cancer, potentially malignant oral carcinomas remain one of the most
prevalent cancers contributing to significant mortality raising concern. Modifiable factors
identified in oral cancer are immunity and diet.
Materials and Methods: 30 subjects (10 healthy and 20 with oral lesions) from both the
genders and age range of 25-55 years were divided into 3 groups of 10 subjects each.
Group I: normal healthy, group II: oral leukoplakia, and group III: oral carcinoma
subjects followed by blood investigations. The diamine oxide method was used to evaluate
ceruloplasmin and the atomic absorption spectrometer method of Sir Alan Walsh was used
to analyze selenium. Collected data were subjected to statistical evaluation for results
formulation.
Results: On intergroup comparison, it was seen that the mean value for selenium in ng/ml
were 119.935, 109.15, and 99.6228 for Group I, Group II, and Group III respectively,
whereas for ceruloplasmin these values were 31.748, 81.413, and 90.7122 respectively for
group I, group II, and group III.
Conclusion: The present study concludes that the most important defense system to prevent
cell damage by free radicals is the use of antioxidants. Detection of selenium and
ceruloplasmin in the serum of the affected subject can serve as a reliable biomarker in
subjects having precancerous lesion (leukoplakia) and oral carcinomas (squamous cell
carcinoma).