Quantitative evaluation of serum fucose in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

Background: Cancer, a disorder of cellular behavior is characterized by the alteration of serum glycoproteins, which are composed of different monosaccharides. One of the monosaccharides is l-fucose, a methyl pentose, which is the terminal sugar in most of the plasma glycoproteins. Elevated levels of protein-bound fucose have been reported in various disease states as well as in malignancies.
Aim: To ascertain the role of serum fucose as a biomarker and to correlate with other studies for its effective clinical application.
Materials and Method: The study was carried out on 67 subjects, including 14 healthy individuals and 53 oral squamous cell carcinoma cases. The serum fucose level estimation was done based on the method as adopted by Winzler using cysteine reagent. Statistical analysis included Chi-square test, Karl Pearson correlation test and Student′s t test to evaluate the significance and variability of values between groups.
Results: Serum fucose levels were independent of age and sex. However, there was significant increase in mean serum fucose level of oral squamous cell carcinoma patients compared with healthy controls. The results correlated well with other studies.
Conclusion: Serum fucose can be used as an effective diagnostic biomarker in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients.

Keywords
Biomarker for oral carcinoma, cancer, oral squamous cell carcinoma, serum fucose