Reet Kamal1, Parveen Dahiya2, Niti Goyal2, Mukesh Kumar2, Neeta Sharma3, Hans Raj Saini4
1Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Himachal Pradesh Government Dental College, Shimla, India.
2Department of Periodontics and Implantology, Himachal Institute of Dental Sciences, Paonta Sahib, Himachal Pradesh, India.
3Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Himachal Pradesh Government Dental College, Shimla, India.
4Departmrent of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, Government Dental College, Rohtak, Haryana, India.
DOI: 10.4103/0976-9668.149075
ABSTRACT
Mast cells (MCs) are resident cells of several types of tissues and contain many granules rich in histamine and heparin. They are distributed preferentially about the micro-vascular endothelial cells in the oral mucosa. These cells play a key role in the inflammatory process and thus their number has been found to be altered in various oral pathological conditions such as oral pyogenic granuloma, oral lichen planus, leukoplakia, oral squamous cell carcinoma, periapical cysts etc. The present review article is aimed to describe the alteration in the number of MCs along with their probable roles in these pathological conditions.
Keywords: Mast cells, normal oral mucosa, oral pathologies.
