Background. Recent studies have demonstrated that podoplanin was expressed in some dysplastic lesions adjacent to primary oral cancers suggesting that podoplanin expression may occur in early oral tumorigenesis and lymphangiogenesis and therefore is related to tumor growth. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of podoplanin as a biomarker for cancer risk assessment in oral leukoplakia and correlation of podoplanin expression with grades of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Materials and Methods. In the present retrospective study, podoplanin expression was investigated immunohistochemically in 40 patients each of oral leukoplakia and OSCC. The scores were analyzed statistically using one-way ANOVA test followed by Tukey HSD. Results. By applying one-way ANOVA test, there was a highly significant increase of the podoplanin expression from mild to severe dysplasia and from well to poorly differentiated OSCC (P < 0.01). Statistically highly significant difference was present between scores of mild to moderate dysplasia, moderate to severe dysplasia, well to poorly differentiated OSCC, and moderately to poorly differentiated OSCC (Tukey HSD test, P < 0.01). Conclusion. Podoplanin can be used as a biomarker for early oral tumorigenesis and for malignant transformation risk assessment of premalignant lesions and as a tumor progression biomarker for advanced grades of OSCC.

Solitary angiokeratoma of oral mucosa is rare entity. The term Angiokeratoma is used to refer to several lesions, whose common denominator is the presence of dilated blood vessels in association with epidermal hyperplasia. Mucosal involvement, including oral cavity is occasionally found either as a component of the systemic variety, cutaneous involvement or isolated oral involvement. Clinically, the lesion is irregular, whitish to dark brown in color, with female predominance. The etiological factors include injury, trauma, or chronic irritation to the wall of a papillary dermis. Histologically, it is characterized by hyperkeratosis, acanthosis, and dilated vascular spaces with or without organizing thrombi in papillary dermis. The vascular spaces are partly or completely enclosed by elongated ret-ridges. Along with this reporting a case of solitary angiokeratoma affecting tongue in a 38-year-old male patient, along with the literature review is presented.