Effects of Race, Age, Smoking Habits, Oral and Systemic Disease on Oral Exfoliative Cytology

¹ Department of Oral Pathology and Public Health, Baylor University College of Dentistry, Dallas, Texas

The effects of race, age, smoking habits, oral and systemic diseases on oral exfoliative cytology were studied in 647 white and Negro males, ranging in age from ten to eighty-nine years. Scrapings were obtained from clinically normal tissues in the gingiva, hard palate, dorsum of the tongue, and buccal mucosa and were stained according to the method of Papanicolaou and Traut.

Statistically significant differences in mean cell count between races were not found in any site; however, Negroes had fewer keratinized cells in the gingiva and hard palate areas.

Aging was associated with decreased keratinization in the gingiva and in the hard palate, and cell count differences between the older and two younger groups were statistically significant when the Duncan Multiple Range Test was applied.

In all sites a slightly increased number of keratinized cells were found in patients who smoked. However, statistically significant differences in mean cell counts between smokers and non-smokers occurred for the blue cells in the buccal mucosa. The increased number of these non-keratinized cells in the smokers may indicate a subsurface retardation of maturation associated in some manner with smoking.

Patients with oral disease such as gingivitis had a significantly higher yellow cell count on the dorsum of the tongue than the controls.

Patients with a history of recent systemic disease had a significant reduction in keratinized cell count of the hard palate, but an increased count in the buccal mucosa compared to the controls. These results may indicate different recovery rates of keratinizing epithelial cells in these sites following certain systemic conditions, such as endocrine disorders and respiratory illnesses.

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