The oral cavity exfoliative citology

Abstract

Cytopatholory is based on the analysis of mucosa scaled cells. It is able to reveal atypias before there is a perceivable clinical manifestation, contributing for the early detection of cytological alterations suspected of malignancy. Among the malignant neoplasias, the Epidermoid Carcinoma is the most prevalent in the mouth, reaching a percentage of 95 % of cases. By the early stage, most part of Epidermoid Carcinomas are not recognized at the clinical examination. The present study aimed to experience students for the work of collecting, preparing of material and analysis of results obtained by the scaling of the buccal mucosa. 82 patients Who were seeking for dental assistance were undertaken to examination at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Dental School Triage Division. The selected anatomical areas for the collecting of material were the lower lip redness, tongue lateral edge and mouth ground. Malignancy cytological criteria were used for the qualitative evaluation of samples. For each smear a cytological degree was applicd, according to the criteria of Papanicolaou and Traut. Class I was the predominant cytological diagnosis (57.8 0/0) against Class II cytological diagnosis (38.2 0/0) and Class III (4.0 0/0). Most of lip smears (80.5 0/0) and ground (52.5 0/0) were classified as Class I, while on the tongue Class II diagnosis were predominant (57.3 0/0). The quantitative analysis of epithelial maturation enabled the acknowledgement of a specific cell pattern for each anatomical site examined. The presence of suspected smears, clinically unconfirmed, suggests the need of further studies on greater population samples.