Mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) is the most common malignant epithelial tumor of the salivary gland in the oral cavity. In South Korea, it occurs most frequently in the palate, retromolar area, floor of the mouth, buccal mucosa, and other areas of the oral cavity. MEC is rare in children and adolescents under 20 years of age, but it is the most common malignant salivary gland tumor in this group. Reconstructive surgery is often required due to cystic lesions or resection of malignancy in the oral cavity. Buccal fat pad (BFP) is a flap that is reliable and suitable for reconstructing oral defects because it has a low complication rate and small volume change over time. Case Presentation: We report the case of a 12-year-old female patient with low-grade MEC on light soft palate with no neck metastasis. After tumor resection the palatal mucosal defect was reconstructed with a BFP flap. Conclusion: The purpose of this article is to discuss the features and treatment methods of MEC that is rarely occurring in children, and the usefulness of BFP for reconstruction. Therefore, we will make a precise diagnosis and treatment as we examine the clinical feature and review the literature.

Pseudosarcomatous fibromatosis (PSF), also known as nodular fasciitis and pseudosarcomatous fasciitis, is a rare, benign proliferation of fibroblasts and myofibroblasts. It is often misdiagnosed as sarcoma because of its characteristic rapid progression, leading to unnecessary and aggressive surgery. Here we report a case of PSF found in the masseter muscle in a 26-year-old female. The mass that could be misdiagnosed because of its rapid growth characteristics was surgically excised by an intraoral approach and diagnosed as PSF by histopathologic examinations.

It is well known that lymph node metastasis is a major prognostic factor in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). 30-40% of patients with OSCC have already undergone regional metastasis at diagnosis. The survival rate of patients with metastasis is reduced by more than 50%. Therefore, prevention and early detection of metastasis are very important to increase the survival rate of patients. Many investigators have studied the molecular mechanism of metastasis and tried to develop the molecules to inhibit any step of metastatic cascade. Among those molecules, an interest in the metastasis suppressor gene has been increasing. Expression of metastasis suppressor KiSS-1 has shown to be significantly related to poor clinical outcome and worse survival rate of patient in various malignancies of different organs. In addition, our previous study in OSCC also revealed that downregulation of KiSS-1 expression correlated with the presence of cervical lymph node metastasis, one part of tumor progression. Therefore, further investigation was needed to identify the molecular function of KiSS-1 using OSCC cell line and to evaluate the possibility of KiSS-1 as a new therapeutic target.

Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is the most common non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and usually showed painless neck swelling, fever, sweat, and weight loss. Although about 5% of all lymphomas appeared in the oral area, the primary maxillofacial lymphomas were rare and sometimes clinically tended to be misdiagnosed such as chronic periodontitis, osteomyelitits, etc. This study demonstrated three cases of primary DLBCL mimicking localized osteomyelitis at mandible or maxilla. A series of histological and immunohistochemical examination using different biomarkers of lymphoreticular cells were performed to characterize the neoplastic cells of DLBCL. The first case occurred in a 45 years old male exhibiting mandibular osteomyelitis and neck swelling. The second case simply showed a gingival swelling at left upper premolar area in a 55 years old male. And the third case is from an 84 years old female who felt numbness at left lower lip and had severe periodontitis involving regional alveolar bone resorption. All of three cases had experienced no systemic manifestation of lymphoreticular malignancy before the diagnosis of oral lymphoma. Immunostainings of CD3, CD20, TNFα, BCL-2, Ki-67, PCNA, and c-Myc were strongly positive in these tumor cells, while those of p53 and CD31 were slightly positive, and CD56 immunoreaction was negative. These three cases were diagnosed as DLBCL and referred to the hemato-oncology unit for treatment. Therefore, every chronic granulomatous periodontal lesion hardly cured by simple medical treatment should be carefully explored through pathological examination, and it was presumed that DLBCL is closely related to the chronic inflammatory periodontal lesions recruiting mucosa-associated lymphoid cells in older patients. It was also suggested that DLBCL be differentially diagnosed from T-cell lymphoma, Burkitt’s lymphoma, and Hodgkin’s disease, etc. with immunohistochemical determination of tumor cell subtypes as soon as possible in order to be treated with appropriate therapy.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a group of small non-coding RNAs consisting of 18~24 nucleotides in length. Each miRNA is expected to bind a few hundreds of putative target mRNAs, thus inhibiting their translation into protein products mostly by degradation of targets. With its biogenesis extensively deciphered, miRNAs have been implicated in a variety of biological processes, including early development and cellular metabolism. In addition, dysregulation of miRNAs and subsequent alterations in the expression of its target molecules are thought to be linked to the pathophysiology of multiple human illnesses, including cancer. To establish the miRNA-target relationships important for developing a specific disease, it is critical to validate the putative targets of each miRNA suggested by computational methods in vivo. In this review, we will first discuss oncogenic and tumor-suppressive roles of miRNAs in human cancer and introduce computational methods to predict putative targets of miRNAs. Then, the value of Drosophila melanogaster as an alternative model system will be further discussed in studying human cancer and in validating the miRNA-target relationships in vivo. Finally, we will present a possibility of applying the mammals-to-Drosophila-to-mammals approach to study the roles of miRNAs and their targets in the pathophysiology of oral cancer, an intractable type of cancer with poor prognosis and survival rate.

This study was planned to evaluate the efficacy of surgical treatment in stage 2 medication related osteonecrosis of jaw(MRONJ) patients. Retrospective analysis was performed about patients who were treated with medication related osteonecrosis of jaw from 2015 to 2017. 25 Patients were treated by a single surgeon at the Department of Oral Surgery, Dental Hospital, Pusan National University. The treatment methods they received were conservative or surgical. The results of treatment were classified as "fail" and "success" and the prognosis according to the treatment method was compared. Conservative treatment 14.29% (2 cases), sequestrectomy 64.29% (9 cases) and saucerization 21.43% (3 cases) were performed in the MRONJ group, and 2 treatment failures were encountered after conservative treatment and 1 after saucerization. Surgical treatment resulted in better outcomes in stage 2 MRONJ patients. Furthermore, treatments were deemed successful when surrounding necrotic bone containing sequestrum was reliably removed. Therefore, this study suggests that the treatment of "stage 2" MRONJ should actively consider surgical treatment.

Recently chronic inflammation is focused on the association with cancer progression and acquisition of aggressive biologic behaviors, such as invasion, metastasis, and resistance to chemotherapeutic reagents. Due to the close vicinity within oral cavity, oral cancer may be intimately associated with chronic periodontitis. The present study was done to observe the effect of chronic periodontitis on oral cancer cells by utilizing P. gingivalis infection, a major pathogen in chronic periodontitis. We analyzed and compared the mRNA expression levels of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers in non-infected and P. gingivalis-infected oral cancer cells. Eighty-six genes, which are well known as EMT markers, were analyzed using commercially available EMT microarray plates, performed in triplicate. Among the 86 genes, the expression of 26 was increased (≥ 2 fold) by P. gingivalis, whereas that of 7 genes was decreased (≥ 2 fold). Our study suggests that P. gingivalis infection evokes significant changes in EMT-related genes. Further observations on molecular mechanisms underlying these changes may help to clarify the role of chronic periodontitis on cancer progression and to develop more efficient preventive and therapeutic modalities for oral cancer. (182 words)

Autophagy is recently receiving the spotlight as the development strategy for promising anticancer drugs. In particular, the majority of anticancer drugs originating from natural products are known to induce autophagy. Saururus chinensis has been used for treating various inflammatory diseases. Recent research has revealed that the extract of Saururus chinensis possess cytotoxicity for various types of human cancer cells. However, the exact action mechanism of Saururus chinensis extract for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has not been studied yet. Therefore, the authors of this research aim to study the effect of methanol extract of S. chinensis (MESC) on OSCC cells. To observe the cell proliferation inhibitory effect of MESC on HSC3 cells, the authors conducted the trypan blue exclusion assay. Also, the action mechanism of MESC was studied by conducting the cell cycle analysis, acidic vesicular organelle (AVO) staining and flow cytometry analysis, monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining, propidium iodide staining, and Western blotting on MESC-treated HSC3 cells. When HSC3 cells were treated in MESC, the cell proliferation was suppressed in time-dependent and dose-dependent manners. Also, the number of sub-G1 arrested cells increased in a dose-dependent manner. MDC punctate and AVO puncta significantly increased respectively. Western blot analysis demonstrated the expression of autophagy-related proteins increased, but apoptotic proteins were not observed. Also, the pAkt protein was reduced, while the p-p38 protein and pERK protein increased. According to our results, MESC induced autophagy and accompanied changes in the cell cycle in HSC3 cells. Also, the alteration in Akt, ERK, and p38 pathways were confirmed. This result suggested the possibility of MESC as the new promising adjuvant for treating OSCC patients.

Differential diagnosis of the malignant lesion and the benign lesion is critically important for the precise treatment. A clinician should diagnose in a comprehensive manner considering clinical, radiological, and histopathological perspectives. The lesion in the oral cavity in this study was clinically and radiologically malignant. However, the lesion was histopathologically benign. Surgical intervention was not performed except biopsy. The lesion improved after about one month of supportive medication after the biopsy. The importance of decision making process was emphasized in this report.

A 31 years old female had been suffered from a bony swelling in right premolar region of the mandible for 12 years, recently grown rapidly. A fistula tract developed on the right anterior mandibular border, but the lesion was relatively asymptomatic. On the radiological examination, the tumor mass was irregularly mixed with radiolucent and radiopaque areas, forming multiple cystic spaces. Under the diagnosis of calcifying odontogenic cyst, the mandibular mass was resected and examined pathologically. After decalcification, the dissected tumor mass showed multiple small cystic spaces and calcifying fibrous tissue, mimicking calcifying odontogenic cyst or ameloblastoma. Histological observation showed many calcifying cementoid materials and ossifying trabeculae. The cystic spaces were turned out to be dilated vascular channels lined by endothelial cells, containing plasma fluid. However, the main lesion was diagnosed as cemento-ossifying fibroma (COF), and the atypical vascular channels were greatly dilated and gradually expanded the whole tumor mass. The present COF was examined through immunohistochemical (IHC) array, and investigated for tumor cell characteristics, exhibiting abnormal ossification and aneurysmal cystic changes. IHC array disclosed that the tumor cells grew progressively in the lack of apoptosis, and that they showed lower expression of RUNX2 than BMP-2, RANKL, and OPG, and increases of protein expression in HIF-1α, VEGF-A, and CMG2. These data suggested that the reduced expression of RUNX2, osteoblast differentiation factor, be relevant to abnormal ossification of COF, and that the consistent expressions of angiogenesis factors be relevant to de novo angiogenesis in COF, subsequently resulted in aneurysmal cystic changes.

The supernumerary tooth which is extra tooth in comparison to normal dentition is one of the developmental problems. The most common type of supernumerary tooth is mesiodens which may cause several complications like delayed eruption, crowding, spacing et al. Moral Incisor Hypomineralization (MIH) describes the clinical appearance of enamel hypomineralization of systemic origin affecting one or more permanent first molars that associated frequently with affected incisors. We report a case of a 6 – year – old boy who visited our clinic for removal of mesiodentes. The patient was diagnosed by mesiodentes and MIH by clinical examination and radiographic examination. Under local anesthesia, Mesiodentes were removed surgically. The demarcated opacities, a feature of MIH, were observed in the removed mesiodentes. After removal of mesiodentes, the maxillary central incisors erupted normally and in order to manage the teeth affected MIH, follow-up and fluoride varnish application were done every 3 months.

Extranodal intraoral Hodgkin lymphoma is not common. We report the case of a 78-year-old male patient with ulcer of the mandibular oral mucosa that was not cured for about 3 weeks. In biopsy and histopathologic examination, it was found to be extranodal intraoral Hodgkin lymphoma. Early diagnosis of oral lesions led to early detection of lesions of the opposite neck lymph node in an additional PET-CT scan. We report this case and review relevant literature.