Impact of consumption factors on soft tissue changes in Swedish moist snuff users: a histologic study

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relative importance for histologic changes of the oral mucosa of such consumption factors as years with regular snuff use, hours and grams of daily snuff use. The material consisted of biopsies of selected cases (two groups) from 252 regular snuff users of whom 184 used exclusively loose and 68 exclusively portion-bag packed snuff. Group 1 comprised 8 pairs of loose snuff users with large differences (14-45 yr) in terms of years with regular habit. Many years of snuff use did not per se seem to result in tissue changes which significantly differed from changes seen in subjects with only a few years of loose snuff use. Group 2 included 5-10 subjects showing the lowest and highest daily consumption of loose or portion-bag packed snuff. Among those with a low daily consumption, portion-bags seem to be related to less pronounced changes than loose snuff. High daily snuff use was associated with relatively somewhat more pronounced epithelial surface changes but histologic differences between the two habit groups were difficult to identify.