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ABSTRACT
Orofacial tumours are group of tumours involving the jaw bones and related soft tissues. The principal cellular actors (CD4+ and CD8+ T cells) of cell-mediated immunity play different but complementary functions in antagonistic tumour immunities. The measurements of these subsets of T lymphocytes can be a quantitative assessment of cell-mediated immunity. Therefore, compared to controls, this research intended to determine correlations among Tlymphocytes subset populations alongside clinical indicators in persons with orofacial tumours. Three groups participated in this study; patients with benign tumours (BEN); malignant tumours (MAL) and healthy controls (CTR). Clinical parameters were obtained using questionnaires and clinical records. The lymphocyte counts and T cell subpopulations were determined from automated full blood count analyses and flow cytometry. Data analyses relied on comparative statistics to determine the associations, p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A total of 106 participants comprised as follows; BEN, (N=36), MAL, (N=36) and CTR (N=34) were enrolled in the study. Odontogenic tumours and carcinomas were the most prevalent benign and malignant tumours respectively. Both the CD4+ count and CD8+ counts were highest in the control group and differed significantly among the groups. Conversely, CD4/CD8 ratios were similar among the groups (p = 0.317). The control group had the highest average lymphocyte counts, and there was a significant difference in the lymphocyte counts among the three groups (p = 0.007). The average tumour onset duration was less in MAL group (11 weeks) than BEN group (33 weeks); however, did not vary significantly within the groups. MAL participants with clinical stage 1 had the highest T-cell subset values. The study established that cell-mediated immunity, described in measures of total lymphocyte counts and T cell subpopulations, is reduced in persons with orofacial tumours, and also submits that, in malignant tumours, these parameters decreased with the advancement of the clinical stages.
