Exfoliative cytology of normal oral mucosa. Assessing the basal cell keratin phenotype
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G R Ogden1, I Leigh, D M Chisholm
1Department of Dental Surgery and Periodontology, University of Dundee, UK.
Objective:
To attempt to evaluate the likelihood that normal keratin (antibody LH8) expression might contribute to a false positive diagnosis when sampling a lesion affecting the oral mucosa.
Study Design:
Smears were taken from four oral sites (buccal mucosa, hard palate, dorsal tongue, ventral tongue) in 28 patients using the Axibrush. These were processed using a standard avidin-biotin technique, and the number of brown "positive" cells was assessed.
Results:
None of the smears contained cells that were LH8 positive.
Conclusion:
While the results of this study suggest that exfoliative cytology is poor at sampling the basal cells of intact oral epithelium, it does indicate that the identification of LH8-positive cells in a smear from a clinically suspicious lesion is unlikely to be due to harvesting of normal basal cells.