Pericoronal follicles revealing unsuspected odontogenic cysts and inflammatory lesions: A retrospective microscopy study.

AIM: This study aimed to analyze the prevalence of diseases related to pericoronal follicles, and assess the rate of concordance between clinical and histopathological diagnoses. METHODS: Histologically, we analyzed 1,298 tissue samples surrounding the crowns of teeth that were diagnosed clinically as pericoronal follicles. In addition, we determined associations among histopathological diagnosis, patients' age and sex, tissue site, presence of nests of odontogenic epithelium, presence of reduced enamel epithelium, and presence of diffuse inflammation. RESULTS: Odontogenic pathologies were present in 35% of the samples, and rate of concordance between clinical and histopathological diagnoses was 0.54. Probability of developing odontogenic pathologies was high in the mandibular molars (odds ratio: 2.13) and in the tissues with odontogenic epithelial remnants (odds ratio: 1.2), reduced enamel epithelium (odds ratio: 1.3), and diffuse inflammation. (odds ratio: 10.5). CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study highlight the clinical relevance of histopathological examination of the pericoronal tissue in unerupted and partially erupted teeth for early diagnosis of pathologies because this study demonstrated the odontogenic cysts and inflammatory lesions in tissues clinically diagnosed as pericoronal follicles.