Histopathology of benign gingival fibroblastic lesions with special reference to odontogenic fibroma and recurrence rates.

Histopathologic and clinical reexamination of 84 cases diagnosed as peripheral odontogenic fibroma showed 56 cases with no evidence of recurrence, 12 with possible single recurrence and 16 with verified single or multiple recurrences. An effort was made to correlate the histopathologic appearance with the recurrence rate. Three different types of lesions could be identified: fibrous epulis, calcifying fibroblastic granuloma and various types of "fibroma", also showing a high recurrence rate. Our findings show that neither histomorphology nor recurrence rate can be used as a definite criterium to separate neoplasia such as odontogenic fibroma from other gingival fibrous overgrowths.