Antioxidant status of oral mucosal tissue and plasma levels in smokers andnonsmokers

The antioxidant status of an individual is thought to be important in the d evelopment of potentially malignant oral lesions (PMOL) and oral squamous c ell carcinoma (OSCC). To date, little detailed information on mucosal antio xidant status is available in a United Kingdom population and neither has t he relationship between smoking and mucosal antioxidant status been establi shed. Furthermore, it has been implied that serum levels of antioxidants an d tissue levels in the oral mucosa should be equivalent, but that is unprov en. To address these deficiencies in our knowledge we studied 60 individual s, all of whom had an oral mucosal biopsy and simultaneous venous blood sam pling. Antioxidant levels were measured using high performance liquid chrom atography. Smokers (n=19) were found to have significantly lower levels of plasma beta-carotene (P<0.05) and significantly lower levels of tissue alph a-carotene (P<0.05) than non-smokers (n=41). Tissue alpha-carotene correlat ed with plasma levels, but this was not the case with alpha-tocopherol, ret inol, lycopene or beta-carotene. This is the first data on oral mucosal ant ioxidant levels and provides baseline data from which to study patients wit h potentially malignant oral lesions and oral squamous cell carcinoma.