Background: Oral cancers are mostly being preceded by oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD). Early diagnosis of oral cancer or OPMDs speed up treatment and improve prognosis. Raman spectroscopy of blood, urine, saliva and tissue samples collected from OPMD and oral cancer patients were compared with similar samples from normal controls.

Kaposi’s sarcoma is the malignant proliferation of the endothelial cell vessels. It is a systemic, malignant and multifactor disease. It usually presents initially as violaceous cutaneous lesions. Outside of a known context of an immune deficiency, an isolated oral lesions may not think to Kaposi’s sarcoma. Hence the interest of the histological and immunohistochemical study. This paper reviews one such case of Kaposi’s sarcoma in a 42-year-old woman who present an isolated pigmented lesions of the tongue, related to Kaposi’s sarcoma, without cutaneous or visceral involvement, and which led to the discovery of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV). The stabilization was obtained with antiretroviral triple therapy.

The incidence of cancer worldwide is on a rise, accounting it to be the second most common disease, first being the coronary heart disease [1]. The losses of cellular regulation that gives rise to most or all cases of cancer are due to genetic damage. Mutations, in two broad classes of genes – proto-oncogenes (eg, ras) and tumor suppressor genes (eg, APC) – play key roles in cancer induction. These genes encode many kinds of proteins that help control cell growth and proliferation. All human tumors have inactivating mutations in genes that normally act at various cell-cycle checkpoints to stop a cell’s progress through the cell cycle if a previous step has occurred incorrectly or if DNA has been damaged [2]. The cell cycle checkpoints or mitotic kinases are the rigorous quality control steps of mitosis [3] that function in preserving the fidelity and integrity of DNA and allow mitosis to continue with accurately functioning DNA, spindle assembly, centrosome and kinetochore thus preventing cell death through mitotic catastrophe [4]. Most cancer cells are deficient in G1 checkpoint function and therefore fail to arrest in G1 phase on exposure to genotoxic agents. Instead, they accumulate temporarily in G2 phase. However, given that the G2 checkpoint is also partially impaired in cancer cells, they are unable to maintain G2 arrest and eventually die as they enter mitosis. This process is known as mitotic catastrophe or mitotic death [5].

In several diseases, fractal analysis has been proven useful to give contribution in diagnosis and prognosis of the patient and to improve treatments. In the present work we have evaluated the mass dimension of the vascular pattern of optic nerve head in non-glaucomatous optic neuropathic patients and healthy controls. Static fluorescein angiogram was performed and the images of the early venous phase were saved. A manual outline of the trajectories of the two-dimensional vascular network was performed down to vessels of 20 um diameter, processed to threshold the vessel network without background interference and converted into an outline of single pixels and then the fractal analysis was performed-Mass dimension evaluation of the optic nerve head microvascularity was able to differentiate health condition vs. non-glaucomatous neuropathies (p<0.01), as well optic neuritis vs. nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (p<0.01), with high sensitivity and specificity (p<0.0001; p<0.0001). Mass dimension index shows a significantly increased vascular complexity of the optic nerve head in cases compared with controls, also permitting to distinguish between patients affected by optic neuritis vs. nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. This new, fast, unexpensive, methodology may be used in helping the clinician to perform the differential diagnosis between the pathologies and to study the effect of therapies during the follow up of the patient.

Odontogenesis is a complex embryonic process originated by the interaction between two main embryonic components, dental epithelium and ectomesenchyme. This ectomesenchymal interaction is mediated by growth and transcription factors controlling the different aspects of tooth development such as tooth initiation, enamel knot formation and/or cell proliferation and differentiation. The aim of this review was to determinate what factors are, how they interact and its functions in Odontogenesis. We have described several signaling pathways which are essential for correct tooth development and organize all available information. Our conclusion is that instead of large amount of information about tooth development, further studies are necessary to clear several essential mechanisms which still remain unknown and/or unclear.

Background of the study: Detection of the opportunistic microorganisms can be the indicator for the oral hygiene. However, there are many sampling sites in one subject. Context and purpose of study: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the suitable sampling site for opportunistic pathogens as an indicator of the oral hygiene. Results: In the 21 healthy females’ swab samples of tonsil, meticillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus, Pneumobacillus, Haemophilus influenzae, H. parainfluenzae, Lancefield group A streptococci, Lancefield group G streptococci, Haemophilus sp. were detected; detection rates were 33.3%, 4.8%, 19.0%, 4.8%, 4.8% and 14.3%, respectively. The detection rates of methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus and Haemophilus sp. were the highest when compared to the other sampling sites. For H. influenzae, the detection rates were relatively high; 14.3% for tongue, 38.1% for dental plaque and 52.4% for saliva.

Background: The eradication of persisting bacteria, such as Enterococcus faecalis, is crucial for the long-term preservation of the endodontically treated tooth. Context and Purpose of the study: The aim of this research was to evaluate and compare the root canal disinfection potential of 5.25% sodium hypochlorite, 2% chlorhexidine gluconate and 810nm diode laser against control. Results: Adjunctive use of chemical disinfection by either 5.25% sodium hypochlorite or 2% chlorhexidine led to 100% microbial eradication as against diode laser which achieved 97.7% reduction as compared to baseline microbial count and 68.42% reduction after mechanical cleaning at the same dilutions. Main findings: Chemicals used in the study achieved greater disinfection than diode laser irradiation. Conclusions: 5.25% sodium hypochlorite or 2% chlorhexidine can be efficiently used as an adjuvant to mechanical root canal cleaning.