Cytological picture of the oral mucosa in patients with gastric and colon cancer.

The incidence of malignant gastrointestinal cancers in Poland has been constantly growing, which has led to an intensification of the search for new markers of the early clinical stage of this disease. The oral cavity,as the first part of the gastrointestinal tract, has a very important role. The oral cavity presents symptoms of both typically stomatological and systemic diseases. Oral cancers, benign or malignant, may originate and grow in any of the tissues of the mouth, and within this small area they may be of varied clinical, histological and biological features. These can be lesions typically observed in the oral cavity, but also characteristic of cases where the symptoms occur both in the mouth and in other body parts. The aim of this study was to present a cytological picture of the oral mucosa in patients with gastric and colon cancer and to compare the cytological picture with that obtained from a group of patients with no cancer, using the Papanicolaou classification and the Bethesda system. The study was conducted in 126 patients treated surgically in the II General and Gastroenterological Surgery Clinic between 2006 and 2008. All patients were divided into two groups based on the type of lesions. In both of the studied groups, more than half of the patients did not present any abnormalities in the mucosa of the mouth, lips and cheeks in the physical examination. None of the patients had erosion, ulceration or lesions typical of leukoplakia or lichen planus. No malignant cells were detected in either of the studied groups, and there were no well-defined lesions found in the oral cavity that would distinguish the patients with gastrointestinal cancer.