Identification of Candida in Potentially Malignant and Malignant Lesions of the Oral Cavity

Oral cancer is one of the highly prevalent cancers in the world. Since the role of Candida in premalignant and malignant lesions of the oral cavity is not fully understood, the purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of Candida and its association with the potentially malignant and malignant lesions of the oral cavity. In this descriptive-analytical study, 60 malignant and premalignant lesions (35 cases of squamous cell carcinoma, 16 cases of oral lichen planus, and 9 cases of leukoplakia) were obtained from the Pathology Department of Zahedan Dental School. Two tissue sections (5 µm) of each sample were stained with Hematoxylin and Eosin (H & E) and periodic acid-Schiff’s (PAS) reagent to evaluate for fungal hyphae under a light microscope. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS (V.21) by Fisher’s exact test. From the 35 cases with oral squamous cell carcinoma, 16 (45.7%) were positive for Candida hyphae. Among the potentially malignant lesions, 4 (25%) cases with oral lichen planus and 2 (22.2%) cases with leukoplakia demonstrated the presence of Candida hyphae. No statistically significant difference was found in the presence of Candida between potentially malignant and malignant lesions (P = 0.073). The study showed that the prevalence of Candida was higher in malignant lesions than in premalignant lesions, but this difference was not statistically significant. Therefore, Candida cannot be a useful indicator in predicting malignancy development.