A Comparative Study of Cytokeratin 7 Expression in Dentigerous Cyst and Radicular Cyst by Immunohistochemical Method

Background and aim: it is difficult to identify the type of odontogenic cyst in somepatients. evidence shows that difference in expression level of differentcytokeratins can be helpful for detection and identification of odontogenic cysts.the aim of this study was to investigate the cytokeratin 7 (ck7) expression inradicular cysts and dentigerous cysts.materials and methods: in this cross-sectional study, 20 samples of radicular cystsand 20 samples of dentigerous cysts (10 inflammatory, 10 non-inflammatory) wereselected from the archives of the oral pathology department of isfahan dentalschool, which had been obtained by excisional biopsy. age and gender of patients,and location of lesion were extracted from patient records. immunohistochemical(ihc) staining for ck7 was performed and the expression level of this marker wasdetermined based on the sid index. data were statistically analyzed by themann-whitney, kruskal-wallis, chi-square, fisher's exact, and t tests using spssversion 24 at 0.05 level of significance.results: the two groups had no significant difference regarding the mean age(p=0.785), gender (p=0.490), or lesion location (p=0.172). there was a significantdifference between radicular and dentigerous cysts in ck7 expression (p=0.003),and the pattern of staining (p=0.028). no significant difference was found betweeninflammatory and non-inflammatory dentigerous cysts based on ck7 expression(p=062).conclusion: expression of ck7 may be useful for differentiation of dentigerous cystfrom radicular cyst.