The results indicate that the Dental 3D-CT imaging system is suitable for clinical assessment of alveolar bone grafting before and after installation of dental implants or orthodontic treatment of the cleft-adjacent teeth.

Saliva samples collected from 393 subjects with and without oral diseases were examined for concentrations of mycoplasmas and Mycoplasma species. Mycoplasmas were isolated from 383 (97%) of the 393 subjects. Viable counts ranged from zero to 7.6 x 107 CFU/ml (median, 6.9 x 104) and were significantly (P < 0.01) higher in diseased subjects, except for those with arthrosis temporomandibularis, than in controls. Of 1,400 isolates, 897 (64%), 442 (30%), and 8 (1%) were identified as Mycoplasma salivarium, M. orale, and M. hominis, respectively, and the remaining 73 isolates (5%) were unidentifiable. More than two-thirds of the isolates from diseased subjects versus only half from controls were identified as M. salivarium. In diseased subjects other than those with ostitis (especially those with arthrosis temporomandibularis), the incidence of M. salivarium was higher than that of M. orale, whereas the former occurred about as frequently as the latter in the controls. Antibodies to M. salivarium were also measured in sera from some subjects by the metabolism inhibition test. Sera with metabolism inhibition titers of 16 or greater were rated positive. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of antibodies between diseased subjects (60%) and controls (40%), but the mean titers (97 to 220) of all positive sera from diseased subjects were two to four times those for sera from controls. In addition, a fourfold or greater rise or fall of antibody titers to the organism was shown in paired sera from some subjects. On the basis of these results, M. salivarium was strongly suggested to participate etiologically in some cases of oral infection.

We studied 1809 patients with oral cancer who visited and were treated, in 2002, at the 148 institutions certified as training facilities by the Japanese Society of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. Of these institutions, 39 are dental university hospitals, 44 are medical university hospitals, 64 are general hospitals, and for 1 institution, the classification was not known. The patients consisted of 1071 (59.2%) males and 738 (40.8%) females (male: female ratio, 1.45:1), who had a average age of 65.2 years. The tongue (40.2%) was the most common site affected, followed by the gingiva (32.7%), buccal mucosa (10.1%), and oral floor (9.0%). There were 6 cases of multiple intraoral cancers. On histopathological examinations, squamous cell carcinoma (88.7%) was the most common type found, followed by adenoid cystic carcinoma (2.1%), and mucoepidermoid carcinoma (1.7%). Cases classified as T2N0 were the most common (32.1%), followed by T1N0 (21.4%), T4N0 (8.0%), and T2N1 (7.6%). Distant metastasis occurred in 17 patients (1.0%). Nonepithelial tumors, among which malignant melanoma was the most common type, accounted for 1.8% of the tumors. The sizes of the nonepithelial malignant tumors ranged from 1.0 to 7.0 cm, with an average size of 3.7 cm.

In this study, we report a tumor that resembled previously reported uncommon tumors histologically similar to ameloblastoma or adenomatoid odontogenic tumor (AOT), showing the formation of hard tissue. We evaluated the histological characteristics by reviewing the literature. The patient was a 19-year old male. The lesion was located from the canine to third molar in the right mandible and was unicystic with a comparatively clear demarcation. The tumor tissue was cystic overall, showing multiple formation of small and large cysts. The tumor tissue resembled a variant form of plexiform ameloblastoma. Formation of dentin and dentinoid was observed in the tumor stroma, whereas formation of enamel was not observed. Very few cases of a variant form of ameloblastoma that shows formation of dentinoid have been reported, and the histological picture in this study closely resembled previously reported "adenoid ameloblastoma with dentinoid".

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