Abstract:

Objective　The aim of this studywas to reveal the relations between expression and tumor behavior such as in- vasion, metastasis and prognosis in oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) through analyzing the expression of urokinase-type plas- minogen activator (UPA).Methods　With Labelled streptavidin biotin method (LsAB), the expression of UPAwas analyzed in 80 cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma, 10 cases of oral normal mucosa and 10 cases of oral leukoplakia.Results　Compared to oral normal mucosa and oral leukoplakia, the expression ofUPAwas significantly higher in SCC. The expression ofUPA in SCC cases with lymph node metastasiswas significantly higherthan in caseswithoutmetastasis. The expression in caseswith good prog- nosiswas significantly higher than in those with poor prognosis and the expression was significantly higher in cases with invasive growth than in those with ulcerative and papillary growth.Conclusion　The results obtained indicated that high expression ofUPA in SCC might be closely related to lymph node metastasis, invasive growth and poor prognosis.

Key words: oral squamous cell carcinoma, urokinase-type plasminogen activator, invasion, metastasis, prognosis