Non/micro-invasive clinicopathologic methods in the assessment of oral leukoplakia multistep carcinogenesis: a case report

Oral leukoplakia is a common potentially malignant oral lesion. Most scholars consider that its cancerization follows a multistep process of gradual progression. If surveillance and assessment could be performed at earlier stages to assess the risk of cancerization, the probability of malignancy would obviously be reduced. In this paper, we report on a patient with cancerous oral leukoplakia in three different clinical areas, from upper to lower, that showed a similar spatial distribution of increased cancer risk in each clinical manifestation. A series of nonor microinvasive clinicopathologic methods and subsequent histopathologic examination were performed and proliferation of related proteins was investigated by immunohistochemistry. The areas with different levels of cancer risk coexisted successively and contiguously in one lesion. This case intuitively confirmed the oral leukoplakia multi-step carcinogenesis model, non-invasive clinicopathology, histopathology and immunohistochemistry, showed a positive role for noninvasive detective methods in oral leukoplakia long-term monitoring management.