Subepithelial changes in oral submucous fibrosis

Abstract

Submucous fihrosis was reported as a distinct morbid entity of the human oral mucosa by Joshi (1953). He described the symptoms as vesicles on the palate in early cases, gradually increasing oral fibrosis leading to trismus, and a marked inability to eat food spiced with chillies. The identical oral state has been called variously as "Atrophia idiopathica tropica mucosae oris" (Schwarz 1952). "Diffuse oral submucous fibrosis (Lal 1953) ; "idiopathic scleroderma of the mouth" (Su 1954); "Idiopathic palatal fibrosis" (Rao 1962) and "Selcrosing stomatitis (Behl 1962)-the interesting point being that, except for Su's cases, which occurred in the Chinese in Taiwan, this condition has been reported only in lndians. Clinical aspects of the disease, its histopathology, and probable etiology have all been commented upon during the last few years (Sirsat & Khanolkar 1957, 1960, 1960a, 1960b, 1962, l962a, DeSa 1957, George 1958, Sharan 1959, Pindborg et al. 1964). A recent paper reports the epithelial changes that occur in the oral mucosa in submucous fibrosis (Pindborg et al 1965). This paper describes in detail the subepithelial changes that supervene in submucous fibrosis and assays a histologicaI comparison in early and advanced stages of the disease.