Manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) correlates with prognosis of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma.

In the present study, tissue manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) activities were determined postoperatively as a means to gauge future prognosis in oral squamous cell carcinoma (O-SCC). We investigated the relationships among the various clinico-pathologic parameters and clinical course of 43 patients with O-SCC. The Mn-SOD activity in the cancerous tissues decreased with the healthy controls, but there was no significant difference between the patients with O-SCC and healty controls. There was no significant difference between tissue Mn-SOD activities and clinical stage. However, patients who presented metastatic lymph nodes (N 1 or N 2) exhibited higher tissue Mn-SOD activities than patients without metastatic lymph nodes. In the pathologic parameters, the tissue Mn-SOD activities of grade 4 C, 4 D group and high histological malignancy group were significant higher than those of other groups. The tissue Mn-SOD activities were significantly lower in the good-prognosis group than in the poor-prognosis group. These results of the present study suggest that a evaluation of tissue Mn-SOD activities in O-SCC is a useful prognostic factor for screening of patients with O-SCC.