Quantitative exfoliative cytology of normal and abnormal oral mucosal squames: preliminary communication.

Quantitative techniques have been applied to the exfoliative cytology of normal and abnormal human oral mucosal squames. This study is ongoing but early results indicate that a normal baseline for clinically normal oral squames, related to age and site, may be difficult to achieve. However, results obtained for the pathological smears suggest that these techniques may improve the diagnostic sensitivity of cytology in the management of oral cancer.