The capsular connective tissue stroma plays a vital role in the behaviour of odontogenic cysts: A histochemical study

Introduction: Odontogenic cysts are among the most frequent destructive benign lesions of jaws. The most common odontogenic cysts are radicular cysts, dentigerous cysts and odontogenic keratocyst. Many efforts have been carried out to understand the pathogenesis of jaw cysts, but many of those have been unsuccessful. Also, WHO has classified odontogenic keratocyst as an odontogenic tumor because of its growth potential. There is this hypothesis that the more aggressive behavior of odontogenic keratocysts is related at least, partly, to distribution of mast cells. The present study was undertaken to correlate and compare the pattern of collagen fibers and glycosaminoglycans in odontogenic cyst and also to find out if this approach could be used to predict the aggressive nature and its role in expansion of cyst. Material and Methods: Ten formalin-fixed paraffin embedded tissue blocks each of odontogenic keratocyst, dentigerous and radicular cysts were selected. Tissue sections were cut and were stained with Alcian Blue-PAS stain was for staining glycosaminoglycans and Verhoeff Van Gieson stain to detect collagen fibers. The stained sections were evaluated for variations in the structure of the ground substance and the collagen fibers in the different cysts. Results: The connective tissue capsule of the odontogenic keartocyst showed a A variation in the connective tissue capsule of different odontogenic cysts is expected. Conclusions: Increased glycosaminoglycans content and more loose collagen fibers was found in case of OKC as compared to other two entities. Thus, the OKC exhibits differing collegenous and ground substance patterns which probably relate to the aggressiveness of this cysts.