<p>To study the role of systemic cellular inflammatory markers in carcinogenesis in oral squamous carcinoma patients, and comparing it with healthy individuals; and secondarily to assess the correlation between lymphocyte host responses at the tumor site with neutrophil lymphocyte ratio in the cancer patients. The study included retrospective analysis of 110 operated Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients between January 2020 to May 2021 and 110 records of normal healthy individuals. All parameters were assessed for normality using Histogram and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. To compare the variables between cases and control Mann-Whitney <i>U</i> test was used. To assess a correlation between Lymphocyte host response with Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio Spearman’s Correlation test was used. A probability value (p) of ≤ 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. In the present study, Oral squamous cell carcinoma was more common in males (79%) than females (20.9%). Majority of the patients were above 40 years of age (74%). Mean total leukocyte counts and absolute neutrophil counts were higher in Oral cancer cases compared to controls with statistically significant P value (<i>P</i> = 0.003 and <i>P</i> = 0.000 respectively). The mean absolute lymphocyte counts in case group were significantly lower than in the control group (<i>P</i> = 0.002). Mean neutrophil lymphocyte ratio and platelet lymphocyte ratio were found to be significantly higher in Oral cancer patients as compared to healthy controls (<i>P</i> = 0.000 and 0.034 respectively). Correlation between Lymphocyte host response and Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio was statistically insignificant. Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio, Absolute lymphocyte count, Absolute neutrophil count, Total leukocyte count and Platelet lymphocyte ratio were significantly raised in Oral squamous cell carcinoma patients than in healthy individuals. NLR and PLR are associated with bad patient prognosis and poor treatment response.</p>