Mast Cells in Basal Cell Carcinoma

Objective: Many researchers have been more interested in inflammatory changes in tumor stroma recently. Recent studies have shown that mast cells are significantly increased in human skin basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and are associated with tumor aggressiveness. In this study, we compared the number of mast cell population expressing c-kit in the BCC samples and normal skin. We also evaluated the number of this cell type in infliltrative and noninfiltrative subtypes of this tumor. Methodology: Tissue sections containing 30 cases of BCCs and 30 normal skins were prepared and after staining with c-kit were analyzed for the number of stromal mast cells. Results: Our results indicate that the number of c-kit positive mast cells was significantly higher in BCC when compared with normal skin (P <0.01), and number of mast cells in the stroma of infiltrative subtypes of this tumor is higher than noninfiltrative subtypes (p <0.04). In our study there wasn’t any correlation between sex and age with mast cells count. Conclusion: Our results are in line with previous studies indicating that mast cell numbers are increased in BCC. In addition, the results suggest that mast cell populations may contribute to BCC progression. Besides, we demonstrated that this increase in mast cell density was independent of the patients’ ages and sexes.