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Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Isolation of Cells with Morphological and Spatial Information from Oral Submucous Fibrosis Samples by Laser Capture Microdissection
Published on: August 11, 2023
Cytologic and cytometric analysis of oral mucosa in Alzheimer's disease
Raquel Mazzilli Toscano de Oliveira1, Erica Negrini Lia, Renato Maia Guimarães
1Department of Dentistry, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Brasilia, Distrito Federal, Brazil.
Objective:
To analyze cytomorphologically the buccal mucosa of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD).
Study Design:
Brush biopsies were obtained from 10 patients with AD and 9 age-matched controls without neurologic symptoms from 3 distinct oral sites.
Results:
A significant reduction in partially keratinized intermediate (red) cells was observed in the buccal mucosa of the AD group. In the AD group, parabasal cells from the floor of the mouth (p = 0.017) and buccal mucosa (p = 0.058) and red cells,from the tongue dorsum (p = 0.013) and buccal mucosa (p = 0.002), exhibited significantly greater nuclear areas. With regard to the nuclear to cytoplasmic (N:C) ratio, intermediate (red) cells from the buccal mucosa and tongue dorsum of AD individuals showed a decrease in this parameter (p <0.0001), while superficial (yellow) cells (from buccal mucosa) (p= 0.042) and parabasal (blue) cells (from the tongue dorsum) (p = 0.003) exhibited an increased N:C ratio. No significant differences were detected in the cells from the floor of the mouth.
Conclusions:
Our findings indicate that cytologic and cytometric changes were detectable in the exfoliative cytology of the buccal mucosa and tongue in the AD group.
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