Verrucous hyperplasia or verrucous carcinoma. An analysis of 27 patients.

27 patients with verrucous lesions of the oral mucosa were studied with reference to the validity of a separation of the entity verrucous hyperplasia from verrucous carcinoma, based on an exophytic or an endophytic growth pattern of the hyperplastic epithelium. The occurrence of other mucosal lesions in these patients was also recorded. It is concluded that verrucous hyperplasia probably represents a morphological variant of verrucous carcinoma. In 37% of the patients, squamous cell carcinoma was found as a coexisting or separately occurring disease and in 26% epithelial dysplasia was also present. It is postulated that the existence of a verrucous carcinoma must be considered to be an expression of an ubiquitous premalignant change in the whole oral mucous membrane. Finally, some notes are made on the entities florid oral papillomatosis and chronic hyperplastic candidosis in relation to oral verrucous carcinoma.