Incidence and clinical differentiation of odontogenic tumours

The odontogenic tumours represent a group of interesting and fascinating changes in tissue which demonstrate a confusing picture of uncontrolled odontogenesis. A lack of knowledge of actiology, extraordinary rarity, polymorphism in their nature and lack of agreement on a commonly accepted nomenclature and classification put nearly insurmountable difficulties in the way of every experiment to gather and analyse the clinical behaviour of the different forms of these tumours. Initially, differential diagnostic criteria defining each form of tumour were derived from representative combined statistics in the world literature; simply registered findings as to age, sex, site and "characteristic" X-ray appearances were evaluated and registered tubularly. The "Histological Tying of Odontogenic Tumours, Jaw Cysts, and Allied Lesions", published by WHO in 1971, was chosen and taken as the basis for our evaluation, together with the sparse data in the literature concerning the absolute and relative frequency of these tumours.