Inter-Observer and Intra-Observer Variations in the Assessment of Epithelial Dysplasia in Oral Lichenoid Diseases

Marwa Zohdy; Simone Cazzaniga; Helga Nievergelt; Roland Blum; Valérie G A Suter; Laurence Feldmeyer; Helmut Beltraminelli

doi:10.3390/dermatopathology8020013

Inter-Observer and Intra-Observer Variations in the Assessment of Epithelial Dysplasia in Oral Lichenoid Diseases

Dermatopathology (Basel). 2021 Apr 1;8(2):84-88. doi: 10.3390/dermatopathology8020013.

Authors

Marwa Zohdy^{1

2}, Simone Cazzaniga^{1

3}, Helga Nievergelt¹, Roland Blum¹, Valérie G A Suter⁴, Laurence Feldmeyer¹, Helmut Beltraminelli¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Dermatology, Inselspital Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland.
² Department of Dermatology, Andrology and STDs, Mansoura University Hospitals, Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516, Egypt.
³ Centro Studi GISED, 24121 Bergamo, Italy.
⁴ Department of Oral Surgery and Stomatology, School of Dental Medicine, University of Bern, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland.

Abstract

Oral lichen planus (OLP) and oral lichenoid lesions (OLL) can both present with histological dysplasia. Despite the presence of WHO-defined criteria for the evaluation of epithelial dysplasia, its assessment is frequently subjective (inter-observer variability). The lack of reproducibility in the evaluation of dysplasia is even more complex in the presence of a lichenoid inflammation. We evaluated dysplasia in 112 oral biopsies with lichenoid inflammation in order to study the inter-observer and the intra-observer variability.

Keywords: dysplasia; inter-observer; intra-observer; oral lichen planus; oral lichenoid disease; oral lichenoid lesion.