Quantitative assessment of silver-stained nucleolar organizer region in odontogenic cysts to correlate the growth and malignant potentiality

CONTEXT: The most common and important odontogenic cyst involving jaws is the odontogenic keratocyst (OKC) or primordial cyst, the dentigerous cyst and the radicular cyst. These cysts all though do not show similar behavior, they all have the potentiality to recur. Silver nitrate staining of the nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs) of the benign and malignant lesions is becoming very useful as a diagnostic indicator. Thus, the aim of this study is to assess the diagnostic potential of AgNORs in the cystic epithelium of common odontogenic cysts. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Archived specimens of odontogenic cysts were stained with hematoxylin and eosin stain and AgNOR stain. RESULTS: The comparative evaluation of the AgNOR counts was done among the three varieties of odontogenic cysts, i.e., radicular cysts, dentigerous cysts and OKC and were observed that the mean for OKC was significantly higher than that of radicular cyst. CONCLUSION: Therefore, AgNor could be used as an efficient tool for comparative evaluation of microscopic features such as epithelial thickness, surface keratinization and mural proliferation in dentigerous cyst to that of the AgNOR count.