A clinical study of the surgical treatment for ameloblastoma and its recurrence

Abstract

The management of ameloblastoma still remains controversial. Principally, in cases where there was no or little perforation of the surrounding bone, we chose conservative surgical management that is an extirpation with peripheral osteotomy and cryotherapy of the internal bone surface. In this report the treatment histories of 50 cases of ameloblastoma, especially recurrent cases, from 1982 to 2007 at our department were investigated clinicostatistically.
Of the 50 cases, we performed extirpation on 12 cases, extirpation with peripheral osteotomy and/or cryotherapy (extirpation with assistant therapy) on 21 cases and dissection (marginal or partial dissection of the jaw) on 17 cases. The recurrence rate was 12% (6 of 50 cases). Five recurrent cases received extirpation (recurrence rate: 42%) and one case received extirpation with assistant therapy (recurrence rate: 6%). The dissection caused no recurrent cases. There was a significant difference between extirpation with and without assistant therapy in the recurrence rate as well as between extirpation and dissection.
These results suggested that the procedures of peripheral osteotomy and cryotherapy in conservative surgical management for ameloblastomas is useful for controlling the lesion.