ABSTRACT
Florid cemento-osseous dyspalasia (FCOD) is a benign, non-neoplastic lesion characterized by multiple sclerosing masses only within jawbones. It is frequently confused with chronic diffuse sclerosing osteomyelitis (CDSO) in previous literatures. In our study, two cases of FCOD were examined to know the characteristics of their calcifying tissues. The first case was non-infected, while the second case was severely infected, displaying the typical features of CDSO in clinico-radiologic findings. The infected FCOD case showed a lot of bacterial colonies in the main lesion with relatively rare inflammatory reaction. The globular cementum-like materials of FCOD showed woven bone pattern and was positive for Alcian blue stain, and also positive for the antibodies of ameloblastin, bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) -2 and -4. On the other hands, in the immunostains of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) -3, -9, -10, and TNF- alpha, macrophage infiltrated in the FCOD lesion was rarely observed. These data suggest that the cementum-like materials of FCOD contain various matrix proteins, and that the cementum-like materials are relevant to the overgrowth of the bacterial colonies by inhibition of the regional inflammatory reactions.