Abstract:
Background; Oral and odontogenic epithelia do not always fulfill the known
histological features to be diagnosed as specific entities due to many factors
including infection.
Objectives: This study investigated the changes in thickness of buccal
epithelium, the epithelium of dentigerous cysts and the epithelium of
keratocystic odontogenic tumours in relation to varying degrees of
infiltration by inflammatory cells.
Methods: Histological preparations of biopsies of the buccal mucosa from
22 volunteers were compared with those from 23 dentigerous cysts and 18
odontogenic keratocysts for inflammatory cell infiltrate and epithelial
thickness.
Results: Epithelia in dentigerous cysts showed an increase in thickness from
a mean of 64.6 ± 8.2 μm to 178.2 ± 11.3 μm in tissues presenting with low
and severe inflammatory cell infiltrate respectively. Likewise, epithelial
thickness in keratocystic odontogenic tumours showed an increase from a
mean of 69.3 ± 9.9 μm to a mean of 148.3 ± 11.3 μm in tissues presenting
with low and severe inflammatory cell infiltrate respectively. In both cases,
the change in epithelial thickness correlated with the degree of inflammatory
cell infiltrate.
Conclusions: Inflammatory cell infiltration induces increased thickness of
pathological odontogenic epithelia and this could present challenges to
histological diagnosis of these conditions.
