Study of cellular kinetics in oral leukoplakia

The Authors aim was to study the Labeling Indices (LI) of 12 subjects with oral leukoplakia, using an in vitro labeling technique with tritiated thymidine (Silvestrini-Kit, Ribbon spa, Milan). Twelve volunteers of our Dental Clinic were enrolled in this study as a control group. The kinetic parameter was investigated by counting cells from autoradiographs on histological selections of the biopsies. By a Wilcoxon test, significant differences were found between the LI of the two groups: p = 0.00003. Finally, a comparison has also been made between LI of these lesions and the LI of oral squamous cell carcinomas