Oral Medicine and Pathology
Summary
Oral medicine and pathology encompass the diagnosis and management of diseases affecting the oral and maxillofacial region, ranging from mucosal disorders and jaw cysts to salivary gland dysfunction and the oral manifestations of systemic conditions. Clinicians integrate clinical examination, imaging and histopathological analysis to characterise lesions such as odontogenic cysts, keratocystic tumours and vesiculobullous disorders. Advances in non-invasive diagnostics, including salivary biomarker profiling and quantitative image analysis, are transforming risk assessment and early intervention. The field bridges dentistry and medicine by addressing personalised therapeutic pathways—whether preserving tooth vitality in jaw cyst treatment, modulating inflammatory mediators in periodontal and mucosal disease, or recognising oral signs of systemic dysregulation. Collaborative approaches that combine clinical, radiological and molecular insights underpin improved outcomes and global efforts to standardise care.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent clinical studies have refined conservative protocols for the management of jaw cysts, demonstrating that strategic decompression and enucleation can preserve pulp vitality in over 75 % of involved teeth. Long-term follow-up confirms gradual bone regeneration without recurrence and minimises the need for root canal therapy. In parallel, population analyses have identified the non-HDL to HDL cholesterol ratio as a potent predictor of periodontitis prevalence, with each unit increase conferring a 7 % rise in disease odds. This work underlines the systemic interplay between lipid profiles and periodontal destruction. A large paediatric cohort has also established reference salivary cytokine ranges—interleukin-1β, interleukin-6 and interleukin-8 levels correlate with early gingival inflammation and vary with age and flow rate—laying the groundwork for saliva-based monitoring of oral health in children.
Oral Medicine and Pathology publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in oral medicine and pathology across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Cytokine: A small protein secreted by immune or oral cells that modulates inflammation and tissue repair.
Odontogenic cyst: A fluid-filled lesion in the jaw arising from tooth-forming epithelium.
Keratocystic odontogenic tumour (KCOT): A locally aggressive cystic neoplasm of odontogenic origin with high recurrence potential.
Non-HDL to HDL cholesterol ratio: A lipid metric comparing all atherogenic lipoproteins to protective HDL, predictive of periodontal disease.
Transformer-based self-attention: A deep-learning architecture that weights image regions by relevance, enabling automated pathology classification.
References
- Development of Automated Risk Stratification for Sporadic Odontogenic Keratocyst Whole Slide Images with an Attention-Based Image Sequence Analyzer. Diagnostics (2023).
- Factors influencing an eruption of teeth associated with a dentigerous cyst: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Oral Health (2021).
- A 3-year follow-up clinical study on the preservation for vitality of involved tooth in jaw cysts through an innovative method. Scientific Reports (2024).
- The association between non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (NHHR) and prevalence of periodontitis among US adults: a cross-sectional NHANES study. Scientific Reports (2024).
- Associations between salivary cytokines and oral health, age, and sex in healthy children. Scientific Reports (2022).
- In Silico Analysis of Genes Associated with the Pathogenesis of Odontogenic Keratocyst. International Journal of Molecular Sciences (2024).
About these summaries
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