Clinico-pathological conference 2002.

Introduction: Six cases are reported, each presented at the 11th Biennial Congress of the International Association of Oral Pathologists as an instructive case for differential diagnosis on the basis of clinical, imaging or histological features.

Clinical Picture: Case diagnoses included a large, possibly intraosseous, myofibroma presenting with an oral mass; Langerhans cell histiocytosis with facial skin lesions; an intraosseous vascular hamartoma of the maxilla with worrying radiological features; an unusual mixed radiolucency of the jaw caused by cemento-ossifying fibroma; an osteosarcoma of the posterior mandible causing a well-defined radiolucency and an intraoral squamous cell carcinoma in a child.

Basal cell adenocarcinoma in minor salivary glands.

Basal cell adenocarcinoma is a rare and relatively recently characterized malignant salivary gland tumour, the malignant counterpart of basal cell adenoma. Diagnosis depends on finding features similar to adenoma but with an infiltrative growth pattern and exclusion of adenoid cystic carcinoma, sialoblastoma and basaloid squamous carcinoma. Basal cell adenocarcinoma is very rarely reported in minor salivary glands.

Transcription and expression of CD44 variant exons by oro-pharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas.

The CD44 cell surface hyaluronan binding protein has many isoforms formed by alternative splicing and glycosylation, and some variants have been associated with a malignant phenotype, invasion and metastasis. CD44 splicing patterns and intron 9 retention in 24 oro-pharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) were investigated by RT-PCR. Transcription efficiency and quantity were determined in 10 carcinomas and normal control mucosa by real-time PCR using dual-labeled fluorescent Taqman probes.