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Volume 3 Issue 2 (April - June, 2015)

Original Articles

STUDY OF MORPHOLOGY OF PLATELETS IN NORMAL AND PREMALIGNANT LESIONS USING PHASE CONTRAST MICROSCOPY
Treville Pereira, Ashwini Pujar, Avinash Tamgadge

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Background: Platelets are small irregularly shaped clear cell fragments, which are derived from the fragmentation of precursor of megakaryocytic cells. However the interaction between platelets and cancer cells are less appreciated. This is surprising considering the fact that blood vessels are the major anatomical pathways for cancer cell dissemination. Phase contrast microscopy is a method that enables us to see very transparent objects which are invisible by ordinary, light microscopy. The aim was to study the morphology of human blood platelets in normal and precancer patients and to correlate this with the degree of dysplasia. The platelets were suspended in hypotonic sodium chloride (NaCl) solution at various concentrations. Platelets underwent marked morphologic changes with decreasing concentration of salt solutions and these changes were observed by means of phase contrast microscopy. Materials and methods: The study group included 15 healthy patients and 15 patients with oral precancer aged between 19 to 62 years who had visited to the department of oral pathology during the period of July to October 2012. After histopathological confirmation blood was collected, centrifuged and the platelet suspension was extracted . One drop of platelet suspension in salt solution of varying concentration was placed between an ordinary slide and cover glass and immediately photographed. Results: Using the phase contrast microscopy normal human platelets have spider like appearance and also shows spicules on them at lower concentrations of NaCl solutions. In premalignant lesions platelets showed variation in the size of platelets, increase in number and no spider like process or spicules were observed. Few cases of premalignant lesions showed an increase of aggregation of platelets with increase in the degree of dysplasia. Conclusion:  Platelet research in precancer patients is growing in investigation and could provide new pathophysiological insights.
Keywords: Premalignant, sodium chloride solution, phase contrast microscopy, platelets.

 
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