THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE USE OF SMOKELESS TOBACCO AND ORAL SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA

Smokeless tobacco (ST) is a tobacco product that is used by means other than smoking. Evidence was available that ST products is a known risk factor for oral precancerous and cancers for long, with greater risk for oral cancer than others. The prospective, descriptive study has carried out to evaluate the relationship between the use of smokeless tobacco and oral cancer.Biopsy samples have collected from 60 patients, whose have attended to Al-Gamhouria Teaching Hospital and histo-pathological private labs in Aden using a questionnaire during the period of 12 months. The sections from paraffin-embedded tissue specimens were stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H & E). A section containing the full thickness of the tumors have used for histopathological grading.The prevalence of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) lesions showed different grade of differentiation among 60 studied patients cases, the Well differentiation squamous cell carcinoma (WDSCC) was the highest percentage (70%). No significant difference noticed in well-differentiated SCCs (WDSCC) between men (36.7%) and women (33.3 %; P < 0.05). The moderate differentiation SCC (MDSCC), and the poor differentiation SCC (PDSCC) represented (20% & 10%) respectively. According to the age of patients, WDSCC, MDSCC and PDSCC highest percentage age group was (51-60) years. Male were predominant in both genders, male to female ratio 1.2: 1. Anatomical sites of all OSCC lesions had analyzed and  revealed that tongue was the most prevalent site (33.3%), followed by the buccal mucosa, (23.3%) , floor of mouth (16.7%) , lip (13.3%), Gingiva (8.3%), and the least prevalent site was the hard palate represented (5%) of all cases., the chief etiological factor which we observed, was tobacco, in  the form of smoking tobacco  used by 75% of the patients followed by smokeless tobacco product users, in form of shamma chewers, (61.7%),  and in form of  Hot sachet (58.3%), and Zarda  users represented 51.7% of cases.Our results indicate that the occurrence of OSCC among studied cases showed different grade of differentiation, age and gender have some relation with the presence of OSCC. and it is high association with risk habits of tobacco use in different forms particularly smokeless tobacco.