M. Toida, SO-CALLED CALCIFYING ODONTOGENIC CYST - REVIEW AND DISCUSSION ON THE TERMINOLOGY AND CLASSIFICATION, Journal of oral pathology & medicine, 27(2), 1998, pp. 49-52
The so-called calcifying odontogenic cyst (COG) shows extensive divers
ity in its clinico-histopathological appearances and biological behavi
our. Because of this diversity, there has been confusion and disagreem
ent on the terminology and classification of this lesion. The attempts
at classification of COC may be divided into two concepts. The first
concept is the ''monistic'' one that all COCs are neoplastic in nature
, even though the majority are cystic in architecture and appear to be
non-neoplastic. The second is the ''dualistic'' concept that COC cont
ains two entities: a cyst and a neoplasm. Although the World Health Or
ganization (WHO) classified COC as an odontogenic tumour in 1992 based
on the former concept, current thinking favors strongly the latter on
e. In this article, several previous classifications of COC in the lit
erature are discussed and a new simple classification scheme based on
the ''dualistic'' concept is proposed.