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Background and objectives: Occlusal overloads produce a series of manifestations in teeth, especially attrition and non-carious cervical lesions (NCCL). Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) can highlight and evaluate tooth lesions. The aim of this study was to examine the changes of dental hard tissues in the cervical area because of occlusal overload by macroscopic examination and using in vitro Swept Source OCT examination. Materials and Methods: The study was performed on 21 extracted teeth with occlusal trauma. After macroscopic and OCT examination, the 2D OCT images were transformed into 3D images using ImageJ software. Statistical analysis of macroscopic and OCT images was performed with Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Results: On 21 teeth, 88 cervical lesions (cracks) were identified. Upper premolars with an occlusal Smith and Knight tooth wear score of 2 had the most NCCL. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in the median widths of cervical lesions between teeth with score 1 and score 3. Additionally, we obtained statistically significant differences in median widths between the buccal and oral surfaces. Conclusions: These cracks can be considered precursors of NCCL. NCCL can be located on dental surfaces in the cervical area other than the buccal one. A 3D reconstruction of OCT images emphasized that cracks are located especially at enamel level, evolving towards the enamel–dentin junction, with multiple ramifications.

Bruxism is a repetitive activity of the masticatory muscles, which determine teeth grinding or clenching, associated with rigidity, bracing, or thrusting of the mandibula. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of possible bruxism in 328 students attending the Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, and its associations with stress and other manifestations of the temporo-mandibular disorder. This was a questionnaire-based study to collect information on self-evaluation of bruxism presence, frequency of specific episodes, stress, anxiety, and other manifestations of temporo-mandibular disorder. Self-evaluated bruxism was identified in 39.33% from the entire study group, allowing us to define two subgroups for further analysis. Sleep bruxism was present in 16.28% of participants; awake bruxism was present in 68.99%, while 14.73% of participants presented a combined form. The main manifestation of bruxism was reported as teeth grinding. Fatigue was identified as a common clinical sign of bruxism and temporo-mandibular disorder. Group distribution analysis (Chi-Square) indicated significant associations between bruxism and stress, panic, restlessness, or increased stress during the COVID-19 pandemic (p < 0.05). Bruxism, and especially awake bruxism, has increased in prevalence among young students, and it has been associated with increased levels of stress.

AIMS The aim of this paper was to validate the Romanian version of an ageism scale for dental students. MATERIALS AND METHODS The initial 27-item ageism scale was translated into Romanian and administered to 210 dental students in Craiova. The data were analysed using principal components analysis (PCA) with an orthogonal, Varimax rotation. The answers were then compared across several demographic variables using a combination of independent samples t tests and one-way between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS Adequate factorability was confirmed with a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) of 0.676 and a Bartlett's Test of Sphericity yielding P

Tongue squamous carcinoma can be found in many forms, having a lot of risk factors, and whose morphological characteristics can be used as a prognostic. The purpose of this study was to histologically characterize a number of 54 patients diagnosed between 2012-2014, with tongue squamous carcinoma. Surgical resection specimens of tongue tumors were processed by paraffin inclusion technique. The diagnose samples were reevaluated according to the World Health Organization (WHO) criteria for head and neck tumors diagnosis, by screening the Hematoxylin-Eosin staining sections. The most common histopathological variety of tongue carcinoma observed in our cases was the non-keratinized form, the basaloid and sarcomatoid types of carcinoma being ranked on the last places. The study outlined the prevalence of non-keratinized forms of tongue squamous carcinoma and all types of tumoral invasion patterns have been observed in different percentages.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the oral status in a group of institutionalized individuals from Craiova, a city in South-Western Romania. Also, another objective of the study was to highlight the clinical, histological and immunohistochemical (IHC) aspects of periodontal disorders in the elderly. The study was performed on 48 institutionalized individuals examined in the Clinic of Dental Prosthetics, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Romania, in 2013. The data were collected using medical records and intraoral clinical examination. The data were processed by descriptive statistical analysis. The gingival mucosa samples were harvested from subjects with teeth mobility. The gingival fragments collected were processed through the histological technique of paraffin inclusion. The serial sections were commonly stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin and processed by the IHC technique with anti-CD3, anti-CD45RO and anti-CD20 antibodies. Of the 48 study participants, 20 were males, 28 were females, aged over 56 years old. 66.6% of them had poor oral hygiene, with a mean simplified oral hygiene index (OHI-S) of 1.57, 16 had the generalized periodontitis, three experienced some form of gingival overgrowth at the remaining teeth caused by incorrect fixed prosthesis, and 25 participants presented a form of periodontitis with gingival retraction. Gingival mucosa samples were histologically diagnosed with papillomatosis with discrete parakeratosis and rich chronic inflammatory infiltrate. The IHC reactions for the studied antibodies were different for T- and B-cells, which had different disposition in lamina propria.

Supernumerary teeth can be found anywhere in the oral cavity, during deciduous or permanent dentition, in males and females. They are rare, owned to various genetic or environmental factors and usually impacted. This article first reports three cases of young adult patients coming to the office for other reasons than their maxillary distomolars and without any pathology caused by them. The decision of keeping or removing these teeth was made based on other associated factors. The fourth case is one of a 40-year-old partially edentulous male patient, also with a good general health and no other associated condition, having a unilateral maxillary fourth molar; it was small, only partially erupted, with a normal morphology with crown and root and an impacted perpendicular position on the distal face of the third molar. It was extracted because of the periodontal and carious complications that it caused to the third molar facing it. The last reported case is a 64-year-old partially edentulous female patient with a maxillary tooth very similar to a distomolar because of its form and position; it was extracted because it interfered with the new removable partial denture treatment plan. The differential diagnosis between a distomolar and an anatomical variant of a third molar was difficult to make even using panoramic X-ray, also because of a very small inferior third molar. In young patients, distomolars are rather accidentally discovered during radiographic examination; later in life, they can cause both pathological issues and difficulties in diagnosis and prosthetic treatment.

The main objective of the study was to highlight the histopathological aspects of some rare forms of facial basal cell carcinomas.The 65 selected patients were diagnosed with head basal cell carcinoma (BCC), during 2011-2013, and they underwent surgery. The excised tumor tissue fragments were processed for paraffin embedding and stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin (HE), Masson's trichrome with Aniline Blue, and Alcian Blue-Periodic Acid Schiff (AB-PAS).The youngest patient was 23 years old, while the oldest was 91 years. The facial BCC there was slightly higher prevalence in males of 34 out of 65 cases. Histopathologically, great varieties of morphological types have been identified in the 65 cases investigated. According to our data, by far the most common are nodular BCCs type, which represented 44.6% from the investigated cases, followed at some distance by morpheiform and superficial subtypes with 13.8% and 10.7%, respectively. The most rare cases of facial BCCs were: cystic, adenoid, fibroepithelial and basal with adnexal differentiation with in one single case each. Relatively rare were the following varieties: pigmented (four cases), combinations of several forms (four cases), metatypical (three cases), keratotic (three cases), and micronodular (two cases).Within the limits of this study, the data reported here shown that such a lesional pleomorphism very often requires to make a careful differential diagnosis with a number of other tumor or non-tumor entities.

Dental wear represents an irreversible loss of dental hard tissue under the action of physical, chemical and mechanical factors, excluding dental caries and acute trauma. Four clinical forms of dental wear are described: erosion, attrition, abfraction, and abrasion. Most experts agree that in each clinical form multiple etiological factors are involved, one being predominant. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is a non-invasive optical method characterized by a micronic resolution. The applications of this type of investigation are multiple in the medical field in recent years, and OCT is gaining a growing importance in dentistry. The study pointed out through OCT imaging for the erosive tooth wear lesion the existence of chemical aggression, with strong demineralization of enamel and dentin. For attrition lesion, OCT images showed the contribution of excessive force and friction movements specific to bruxism. In abfraction, OCT image revealed the importance of the mechanic factor in producing this form of tooth wear and abrasion damage studied may be considered physiological, according to patient age. OCT examination may reveal existing lesions in hard dental tissues for each clinical form and could bring evidence on the mechanisms involved.

Pathological external root resorption is a process by which the hard tooth substance is lost because of action of different local irritative or systemic factors. Six forms of external root resorption are described: surface external root resorption, inflammatory external root resorption, replacement external root resorption, invasive external cervical root resorption, ankylosis and transient apical breakdown. The objective of the study was to establish the prevalence of the pathological root resorption in a retrospective radiological study, to highlight radiological aspects of external root resorption and to describe optical coherence tomography (OCT) aspects in pathological root resorption. External root resorption prevalence in our study was 17%. Radiological exam was very useful to detect the form of root resorption but also to establish possible etiological factors. The study presents the radiological aspects of some forms of pathological external root resorption highlighted on radiography accompanied by radiolucency of the adjacent bone to resorption lesion (as in inflammatory external root resorption and in invasive cervical root resorption) or as changes of the root form, in which the missing part of the root is replaced by the bone tissue, without radiolucency (as in replacement root resorption). The comparison of the OCT aspects of the physiological root resorption in primary teeth with the OCT aspects of pathological root resorption in permanent teeth showed an obvious difference between the images of the OCT signal of the two types of resorption. The OCT signal from the cement is stronger in pathological root resorption, and the OCT signal from the dentin in teeth with inflammatory external root resorption showed a demineralized dentin with multiple heterogeneities, anfractuosities corresponding to resorption craters, with craze lines in subjacent layers of dentin.

The overgrowth, depending on its extension, has multiple effects on the stomatognathic apparatus: functional disorders (impaired speech), difficulty in chewing and aesthetic problems but can cause significant psychological problems. We proposed this study, motivated by the relative increased frequency of the gum outgrowth, its multifactorial etiopathogeny, but especially from the point of view of the specialist practitioner, by the problems that this pathology raises not only for the functionality of the stomatognathic apparatus but also for the facial esthetics, and especially for future therapeutic attitudes needed to solve the existing pathology at this level. We conducted a clinical study and a histological one. For the clinical study, we selected 74 patients who experienced different degrees of gingival outgrowing associated with fillings, dental caries, fixed prostheses, mobile prostheses, orthodontic apparatus. Thirty gingival fragments from patients with gingival outgrowing were processed by paraffin-embedding histological technique and stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin. The morphological results obtained provide the necessary support for understanding the possibility of developing a therapeutic strategy to prevent or minimize the gum outgrowth by administering antibiotic and anti-inflammatory medications associated with medications, which shall cause the apoptosis of the fibroblasts.

The oral exostoses are protuberance located on the alveolar surfaces of the jawbones with nodular, flat or pedunculated shape. The purpose of this study was to highlight the variability of the morphological and clinical characteristics of torus palatinus (TP) and torus mandibularis (TM) in a sample of young and adults' Romanian people. The study was conducted on 74 participants examined in Dental Prosthetics Clinic of the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Romania, during October-December 2014. The morphological characteristics of the tori were non-metrical evaluated by the standard procedures of the clinical examination. Descriptive statistics only including means, averages and percentage incidence have been used to describe the results. Of the 74 study participants, 31 (41.89%) were males and 43 (55.40%) were females. Six had only TP, seven had only TM and three participants had both TP and TM. The most of the palatal tori had spindle shaped, located in all area of the hard palate The round mandibular tori with big size were located in the area of both premolars, and those with elongate shape were located in the canine-premolars area. The palatal tori were more frequently in women and the frequency of mandibular tori was equally in men and women. Most of the palatal tori had spindle shape and most of the mandibular tori were solitary bilateral.

The histological changes of the oral mucosa in contact with a metal alloy dentures is one of the current issues widely debated in the literature.To highlight the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in human paraprosthetic gingival mucosa exposed to nickel and copper compounds using the immunohistochemical technique. The selected participants were wearers of fixed dentures made of nickel-based alloys and copper-based alloys. The gingival mucosa fragments were prelevated through excision after removing fixed denture and extraction one of its affected teeth. The gingival mucosa fragments were processed through the histological technique of paraffin inclusion. The paraffin-embedded tissue sections were usually stained with Hematoxylin-Eosin and processed by immunohistochemical technique with VEGF antibody. The gingival mucosa fragments from nickel-based alloys dentures wearers were diagnosed with papilloma and, also, gingival mucosa samples prelevated from copper-based alloys dentures wearers were diagnosed with condyloma acuminata. Immunohistochemical reaction for VEGF was different in the gingival mucosa fragments with papilloma compared with condyloma acuminata samples. In papillomatosis gingival mucosa fragments, VEGF was implicated in principal in vasodilatation and inflammation process, and secondary in angiogenesis. In gingival mucosa fragments with condyloma acuminata, the principal role of VEGF was in angiogenesis and secondary in inflammation.

The oral mucosa is a component of the oral ecosystem, which can be aggressed by corrosion products released from the dental alloys used in prosthetic dentistry therapy. The purpose of this study was to compare the in vivo effect of nickel and copper compounds on the oral mucosa cells, including their ability to induce cell death, by analyzing the cytochrome c (cyt. c) immunohistochemical expression. Gingival mucosa fragments obtained from the subjects with dentures manufactured by nickel or copper casting alloys were processed through the histological technique of paraffin inclusion. The sections obtained were stained by usually histological methods in order to highlight the histopathological lesions and also analyzed using the immunohistochemical technique in order to study the cyt. c expression. The papillomatosis lesions were observed in the gingival mucosa fragments obtained from the subjects with nickel-based alloy dentures and the condyloma acuminata lesions were observed in those obtained from the subjects with copper-based alloy dentures. The cyt. c immunohistochemical expression was different in the epithelial layer of two types of mucosal fragments but it was the same in their lamina propria connective tissue. We can conclude that the two types of metal alloys have different effects on the adjacent gingival mucosa.

The article discuss the case of an edentulous patient presented to the dental clinic for pain and burning sensation of oral mucosa and diagnosed subsequently with oxyphilic adenoma. A 58-year-old patient, with maxillary edentulism, treated with complete denture, presented to the Clinic of Prosthetic Dentistry of the Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, Romania, for pain of oral mucosa and bad stability of denture. The diagnosis of erythematous denture stomatitis as consequence of salivary flow reduction was establish after patient's clinical examination, and by unstimulated sialometry. Clinical exam suggested hyposalivation could be a consequence of a tumor situated at the level of the left parotid gland. The echography confirmed the diagnosis of left parotid gland tumor. The tumor was surgical removed and histopathological exam confirmed oxyphilic adenoma. Education of patient for wearing new denture while maintaining a strict oral hygiene and dealing with low salivary flow was the treatment for denture stomatitis. General dentist has an important role in finding and diagnosing patients with systemic diseases, especially salivary tumors.

In this work, we compared the histological features of the gingival lesions clinically diagnosed as fibrotic overgrowths due to various etiologic factors as well as an immunohistochemical assessment of fibroblasts phenotypic heterogeneity using the specific labeling for vimentin, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and fibroblast specific protein-1 (FSP1).Tissue samples were obtained from 12 patients clinically diagnosed with fibrotic gingival overgrowth, divided in four groups. Fragments of gingiva were processed for paraffin embedding. Serial sections were used for routine staining Hematoxylin-Eosin, trichromic Masson and Goldner-Szekely, and for immunohistochemical reactions to label vimentin, α-SMA and FSP1 using for signal amplification several techniques (EnVision, LSAB, ABC).Storage of collagen fibers, increase of fibroblast number and frequent presence of inflammatory infiltrate are histological issues of all fibrotic gingival overgrowth. The incidence of granulation tissue varies but the frequency of its presence point the attention to the involvement in collagen metabolism imbalance. Immunostaining for vimentin showed a difference between its expression in samples from different groups. Except the cases of fibrosis induced by orthodontic devices, cells positive for α-SMA were rare. FSP1-positive fibroblasts were the most frequent in all cases from all the groups selected for this study.The phenotype of fibroblasts is different in gingival fibrosis in relation to the risk factor, at present the most common being vimentin-positive and FSP1-positive fibroblasts. Myofibroblasts are rare in gingival fibrosis, the most numerous being in local lesions caused by wearing orthodontic devices and in syndromic fibromatosis. Further studies are required to elucidate the manner in which the active fibroblasts are recruited in relation to the etiologic factor of gingival overgrowth.

The multiple and various changes that the human gingival mucosa undergoes when coming into contact with a denture, require a histopathological study correlated with that of clinical manifestations. The highlighting of the histological lesions of the prosthetic field's mucosa is extremely important in the study concerning the tolerance of the oral cavity tissues towards the materials of dentures, because it has been observed that different materials can cause the same type of clinical changes. The clinical research has been carried out having as a basis a group of patients, carriers of fixed dentures made of different materials, the study method consisting in their clinical evaluation. The investigation of microscopic preparations, obtained through drawing mucosa from those patients under study, has been made by using both usual colorations for an overall examination of the tissue architecture, as well as special colorations for pointing out certain structures. The results of the investigation have made clear the fact that the clinical changes of the prosthetic field's mucosa can be adaptable to the denture or can react pathologically to the various possibilities of denture aggression. The histopathological picture of the paraprosthetic mucosa lesions is polymorphous due to the morphofunctional complexity as well as to the reacting capacity of the oral mucosa when interfering with a fixed denture.