[Treatment of oral leukoplakia with retinamide]

Inhibition of buccal pouch carcinogenesis induced by dimethyl-benzanthracene in hamsters with retinamide was studied. Group A received oral retinamide at a dosage of 20mg/kg, every day for eight weeks. Group B was treated by retinamide orally at the same dosage, plus topical treatment by retinamide. Group C was treated by retinamide topically for eight weeks. Experiments exhibited that under the action of retinamide the incidence of tumor was lowered significantly. All the Group A, B and C had a good response. Clinically 80 patients were randomly arranged into two groups. One group received placebo and served as controls and the other group was treated by retinamide. Results indicate that retinamide is effective against leukoplakia and the response rate is as high as 84.0%. By contrast, only 16.7% of patients receiving placebo showed some improvement.