A mucocele is a pseudocyst containing spilt mucin from extravasation of the oral minor salivary gland. For this study, 115 cases of mucoceles diagnosed at the Department of Oral Pathology, Seoul National University Dental Hospital were reviewed with respect to gender, age, lesion’s site, size, color, histopathologic features, and recurrence. There was no significant difference between maleand female. Nearly 80% cases occurred in young people under the age of 30 (29.7% in the third decade with the highest prevalence). The lower lip (75.7%) was the most common site, followed by ventral surface of the tongue, mouth floor, and buccal mucosa. The lesions measured from 2 to 20 mm in diameter and appeared in various colors. Histopathologically, mucoceles showed pseudocysticcavities containing mucin surrounded by granulation tissues with foam cells. Among the 115cases, 14 showed recurrence on the adjacent sites. Those cases treated with and without removal of the feeding glands on excision of mucoceles showed recurrence rates of 9.2% and 18.0%, respectively. Based on these results, it is recommended that mucoceles be treated with surgical excision of the feeding salivary glands. There were no clinicopathological results significantly different from the established facts regarding the mucoceles of Korean patients.

Odontogenic cysts are classified into inflammatory and developmental origins. The most common representative inflammatory cyst is periapical cyst and the most common representative developmental cyst is dentigerous cyst and cyst which show character of tumor is odontogenic keratocyst and cyst of which cystic epithelial lining cells transform to ameloblastoma is unicystic ameloblastoma.Proliferation studies are needed because of various causes, different clinical and pathologic findings. Recently Ki67 has been generally used as cellular proliferation marker, which is closely related to proliferation. Because Ki67 exists in all the time of cell mitosis stage including G1, S, G2, and M, but disappear in resting phase, G0, it is widely used in the evaluation of cell and tissue proliferation activity. The purpose of this study was to establish clinical therapeutic standard through clinical prognosis associated with Ki67 protein expression because of various causes, different clinical and pathologic findings. Immunohistochemical study was performed in selected each 10 biopsy cases through LSAB reaction and HRP system using anti-Ki67 monoclonal antibody. Ki67 expression was mainly seen in the basal layer of periapical cyst, dentigerous cyst and unicystic ameloblastoma, and in suprabasal layer of odontogenic keratocyat, while positive cells appeared very low frequently in unicystic ameloblastoma. Ki67 expression was mainly observed around inflammatory area. Ki67 expression appeared to be independent on the destruction and recurrence of cystic lesion. Conclusively, high cellular proliferation could not represent destruction and recurrence degree of lesion, but this proliferation might be closely associated with circumstance such as inflammation.

A 67 years old female showed diffuse erosive ulceration at left buccal mucosa. She had received tegretol to treat the patient’s pain and anxiety of trigeminal neuralgia for 18 months. Otherwise her medical history was nonspecific. Underthe clinical diagnosis of lichen planus she received anti-inflammatory therapies using antibiotics and steroid ointment, which were not effective. Consequently her oral ulceration was gradually expanded and aggravated. In the biopsy examination mucosa epithelium was irregularly keratinized and focally detached from underlying connective tissue by thin cleft spaces, accompanied with inflammatory cell infiltration into the subepithelial area. The epithelium was generally acanthomatous with short rete ridges. Many spots of acantholysis were found in the basal and suprabasal layers of epithelium, into whichmelanocytes were migrated. Particularly, many keratinocytes not only in the spinous layer but also in the suprabasal layer contained atypical keratohyalin granules in their cytoplasms. In the immunohistochemistry the epithelium was rarely positive for PCNA and IgK, but strongly positive for HSP-70, and many keratinocytes showed strong positive reaction of lysozyme in their cytoplasms. Taken together, with the characteristic cytotoxic changes of keratinocytes, which are usually found in the oral epithelium damaged by certain drug abuse, the present case of pemphigus-like oral lesion was diagnosed as drug-induced pemphigus caused by long time intake of tegretol, carbamazepine derivative. The acute oral drug-induced pemphigus should be differentially diagnosed from oral lichen planus, recurrent aphthous ulceration, oral leukoplakia, candidiasis, autoimmune pemphigus, etc., in order to treat properly in the absence of biohazards of systemic therapeutic drugs.

Suicide gene transfer has been study extensively for therapies in various human diseases. We can evaluate cellular activity of thymidine kinase and cytotoxic effect in colon cancer cells after suicide gene transfer. We observed cellular expression of green fluorescence protein after transfer with adenovirus into colon adenocarcinoma HCT-15 cells. After transfer HSVtk, we also estimated thymidine kinase activity using [3H]-penciclovir and cellular cytotoxicity by MTT assay. After transfer green fluorescence protein into HCT-15 cells, we could observed fluorescence expression in 10 moi concentration. Expression level of green fluorescence protein markedly increased in 30 moi and most of HCT-15 cells expressed green fluorescence protein in 100 moi. By infection with HSVtk in HCT-15 cells and HT-29 cells, thymidine kinase activity in HCT-15 cells was about two fold higher than that HT-29 cells. Thymidine kinase activity at 1 moi concentration makes no difference with 0 moi in both cells. At 10 moi concentration, thymidine kinase activity increased about three fold comparedwith 1moi in HCT-15 cells, but not observed high increase in HT-29 cells. Thymidine kinase activity at 100 moi showed about three fold increase in HCT-15 cells and one and a half fold in HT-29 cells compared with 10 moi. By treatment of HSVtk at various mois and ganciclovir to HCT-15 cells, we could find that increased cytotoxic effect according to HSVtk concentration. Cellular cytotoxic effect was slightly appeared at 5 moi concentration and intensively increased at 30 moi concentration, dead colon cancer cells were reached about 30% of total colon cancer cells. Cellular cytotoxic effect was consistently increased until 50 moi, and about 50% of cells at 100 moi and less then 50% of HCT-15 cells at 200 moi were survived. Finally, we can identify that suicide gene transfer into HCT-15 cells is performed according to concentration of suicide gene and thymidine kinase activity also increase with HSVtk concentration in both HCT-15 cells and HT-29 cells. Additionally, we also find that suicide gene therapy by HSVtk with ganciclovir intensively increase cellular cytotoxicity in colon cancer cells. Therefore, our findings suggest that suicide gene therapy by HSVtk can affect cytotoxicy for colon cancer cells and eventually seems to influence therapeutic efficacy.

The purpose of this study was to examine the state of the articles in the Korean Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and overall research trends in this field in an effort to grasp the reality of the Journal and suggest some ofthe right directions for the development of research in this field. 332 articles that were printed in the Korean Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology over the past decade (2003-2012) were selected for the purpose of analysis.As a result of analysing the 332 articles in 52 issues of the Journal, it's found that a mean of 6.3 articles were contained in each issue. As for the form of article, original articles was more common than case reports, which were respectively used in 275 articles (82.8%) and 57 articles (17.2%). Concerning research methods by year, cell culture was most prevailing (124 articles, 37.3%), followed by clinicopathologic study (68, 20.5%), case report (62, 18.8%), animal experiments (28, 8.4%), clinical trial study (28, 8.4%) and others (22, 6.6%). As to the number of researchers, the majority of the articles were written by two or more researchers. The most common number of researchers was three (66 articles, 19.9%), and the number of the articles written by two (49, 14.8%) was similar to that of the articles written by four (47, 14.2%). 38 articles (11.4%) were written by eight researchers or more. Regarding the language of the articles, Korean was used in 213 articles (64.2%), and English was used in 119 articles (35.8%). As for the number of references, this number ranged from a low of zero(in the articles related to the history of pathology) to a high of 71, and the average number of references was 27.91. In relation to the themes of research, the largest number of the articles (47, 32.6%) dealt with oral squamous cell carcinoma, followed by diseases related to odontogenic carcinoma (21, 14.5%), diseases related to odontogenic cyst (17, 11.7%), salivary gland tumor (seven, 4.8%) and granuloma (five, 3.5%). The efforts by this study to explore the shifts of articles and recent research trends are expected to provide useful information on how to accelerate the identity building of this journal and the development of research in oral and maxillofacial pathology.

Chronic inflammation has long been considered as an important contributing factor to the development of malignant tumors in various tissues. In this study, we aimed to investigate a potential association between chronic periodontitis,a representative inflammatory disease in the oral cavity, and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), the most common form of malignant tumors in the oral cavity. A retrospective study was designed to include the cases and controls, eachof which consisted of patients first diagnosed with OSCC and temporomandibular disorders, respectively. The existence or a history of periodontal disease was quantitatively estimated based upon the level of alveolar bone loss (ABL) from panoramic radiographs in these groups. Unlike other covariates, including LDH, WBC count and hemoglobin, the levelsof ABL measured at three independent regions (second premolar and first/second molar) were significantly higher in the OSCC group, regardless of the patients’age in most cases. Our results thus support the hypothesis that chronic periodontitis, represented by significant ABL, is an important and clinically relevant factor potentially associated with the development of OSCC.

We pathologically investigated the effects of water irrigation during Er:YAG laser irradiation on wound healing in mouse skin. Fifty-one 6-week-old ICR male mice were used in the present study. Dermal wounds were generated on the skin of the backs using the Er:YAG laser at 100 mJ/pulse and 10 Hz with (4 ml/min) or without (control) water irrigation. Mice were then sacrificed on 0, 1, and 3 daysafter laser irradiation, and the crust of the skin and thickness of the thermal coagulation layer were evaluated pathologically. The epidermis extended faster in the water irrigation group than in the control group on 1 day. The epidermis with keratinized layers became thicker and the crust had completely detached after 3 days in the water irrigation group. The thermal coagulation layer wasthinner in the water irrigation group than in the control group. Apoptotic cell death was prominent in the control group. Detachment of the crust was observed after 3 days in 50% of the water irrigation group and 20% of the control group. These results demonstrated that Er:YAG laser irradiation with water irrigation promoted faster wound healing.

Fucoidan has been extensively studied as medicinal materials due to its biological activities including osteoblastic differentiation effect. However, osteoblastic effect by fucoidan is unknown in alveolar bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (ABM-MSCs). The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of fucoidan on Osteoblastic differentiation in ABM-MSCs and explore its mechanism. Cell proliferation was analyzed by crystal violet staining. Osteoblast differentiation was determined by alkaline phosphatase activity, calcium accumulation assay and gene expression of osteoblast markers.We found that fucoidan induced cell proliferation of ABM-MSCs. Furthermore, fucoidan increased the ALP activity, calcium accumulation, and osteoblast specific genes such as Runx2, type I collagen alpha 1. Moreover, fucoidan induces the expression of asporin and bone morphogenic protein (BMP)-2 and asporin. Based on these results, these finding indicate that fucoidan induces osteoblast differentiation in ABM-MSCs and partially enhanced the mRNA expression of BMP-2 and asporin.

The molecular mechanisms of the carcinogenesis of oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCCs) are highly variable and result in different features of tumor progression, i.e., local tissue destruction and metastasis to regional lymph nodes. A case of OSCC arising from proliferative verrucous leukoplakia (PVL) was analyzed for its protein expression profile by immunoprecipitation (IP) – high performance liquid chromatography (IP-HPLC) by using 72 antisera and comparing results with those of KB cells. OSCC arising from PVL showedstronger expressions of proteins associated with cell proliferation (MPM2, PCNA, eiF5A, DHS, DOHH), cell survival (pAKT, MDM2, survivin), matrix proteolysis (elaffin), tumor suppression (p16, p21, PTCH1), the WNT/β-catenin pathway (SHH, WNT1, APC, β-catenin, snail), proinflammation (TNFα), angiogenesis (HIF, CMG2, vWF), and cellular protection (HSP-70, FAK, caveolin) and of oncoproteins(STAT3, 14-3-3, K-RAS, PUMA, PIM1) and growth factors (EGFR, bFGF) than KB cells. On the other hand, KB cells showed stronger expressions of proteins associated with apoptosis (caspase-3, caspase-8, caspase-9, PARP, FAS, FASL, TGase-1, BCL2, BAD, BID, BAK, FLIP), matrix proteolysis (MMP-2, MMP-9), transcription signaling (NFkB, p38, E2F-1, HO-1), and tumor suppression (p53, RB1, PTEN) and of oncoproteins (DMBT1, CEA) and growth factor (TGF-β1, c-erbB2, VEGF) than OSCC arising from PVL. These data indicate the cells of OSCC arising from PVL are more resistant and more robust than KB cells. Furthermore, they suggest the oncogenic signalings of OSCC arising from PVL play important roles in the aggressive growth and rapid tumor metastasis to regional lymph nodes.

Primary oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) associated with dental osseointegrated implants is very rare. We experienced two patients who had received dental implant surgery before they were diagnosed with OSCC. We report these cases to emphasize the importance of differential diagnosis of malignant lesions associated with dental implants. Additionally, we also suggest that bone graft materials around implants can serve as a potential inducer of invasiveness in cancer cells.

This study aimed to investigate the association between carotid artery calcification (CAC) on panoramic radiograph and intima-media thickeness (IMT) measured on ultrasound. Panoramic radiographs which were taken from dental patients aged 50 years and older who visited for dental treatment were screened for the presence of CAC. The study group was composed of seven patients (four males and three females, average age 74.4±4.2 yrs) with CAC detected on panoramic radiographs, and the control group eleven patients(seven males and four females, average age 64.5±10.1 yrs) without CAC. All the patients underwent carotid ultrasonography to measure carotid IMT. The IMT was compared between the groups by nonparametric analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). The range of IMT of the study group was 1.10~2.0 mm, while that of the control group 0.60~1.10 mm. The mean of IMT was 1.50±0.34 mm in the study group and 0.85±0.14 mm in the control group, and there was statistically significant difference between the two groups (p<.01). In conclusion, CAC detected on panoramic radiograph might have an association with atherosclerosis.

This study were to perform for verifying the activation areas in the human's brain during mastication by using functional-MRI (f-MRI) device on the basis of hypothesis regarding anatomical-physiological parts of brain processing the information of motor and sensory function, and to perform further more for a providing basic provisional foundation about diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of abnormal occlusion as applying functional MRI. Generally healthy 10 volunteers who have a normal occlusion were selected. The half of membersof volunteers was female. Age distributions were approximately alike. Before taking a f-MRI, sufficient practice was carried out as strict standards and made volunteers be not sensible to sweet taste of gum through chewing gum for 30 minutes before taking a f-MRI. Functional images for all volunteers were firstly obtained, and then anatomical images were next. The functional images consisted of echo-planar image volumes which were sensitive to BOLD (blood oxygenation level-dependent) contrast in axial orientation. The volume covered the whole brain with a 64×64 matrix and 42 slices. Images with 64 volumes were acquired under periodic mastication. The orofacial sensorimotor cortex was primary responsible cerebral part during mastication and insula. And also supplementary motor area and cerebellum in brain were intimately connected with mastication. Other numerous anatomical parts of brain were activatedin each volunteer during mastication, but there was no statistical significance in this experiment. Differences according to gender and age were no significance in this study. The f-MRI device showed the accurate and detailed image in activation area of brain through valuable device. It suggested that f-MRI might be helpful to establish the basis of funtional standard occlusion depend on activation area of brain.