Morphometric discrimination between syndromic (Gorlin) and nonsyndromic keratocysts

OBJECTIVE: To search for morphologic nuclear features in the epithelial lin ing of odontogenic keratocysts to differentiate simple from Gorlin syndrome cysts. STUDY DESIGN: Five cases of syndrome-associated keratocysts and five of sim ple ones were studied. Thirty nuclei from the epithelial basal layer for ea ch case were analyzed by the shape analytical morphometry (SAM) software sy stem to quantitatively evaluate nuclear dimensions (area, perimeter, diamet er), contour irregularities and nuclear shape asymmetries. Results were sub jected to Student's t test and cluster analysis. RESULTS: Values of nuclear dimensions were very close in both groups of keratocysts, without any sign ificant statistical differences. The variables related to nuclear profile i rregularities, as well as those describing nuclear asymmetry, showed signif icantly higher values (P < .001) in syndromic cysts, Cluster analysis produ ced two different clusters by using variables related to nuclear contour ir regularities. CONCLUSION: Preliminary results indicate the existence of nuclear morpholog ic differences between simple and syndromic cysts.