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Erythroplakia and Erythroleucoplakia

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Premalignant Conditions of the Oral Cavity

Abstract

In 1911, the French dermatologist Louis Queyrat described a sharply defined, bright red, glistening velvety precancerous lesion of the glans penis giving rise to the term ‘erythroplasia of Queyrat’ [1]. In 1978 WHO defined erythroplakia as a “fiery red patch that cannot be characterized clinically or pathologically as any other definable disease” [2]. Bouquot in 1994 updated the definition for erythroplakia as “a chronic red mucosal macule which cannot be given another specific diagnostic name and cannot be attributed to traumatic, vascular, or inflammatory causes” [3]. Erythroplakia and erythroleucoplakia (Speckled leucoplakia) are clinical terms and have no specific histopathologic definition. The correlation between the clinical terminology and pathologic counterparts like hyperplasia, dysplasia and hyperkeratosis are imperfect and that contributes to confusion.

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© 2019 Peter A. Brennan, Tom Aldridge, Raghav C. Dwivedi, Rehan Kazi

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Parasuraman, L., Bal, M., Pai, P.S. (2019). Erythroplakia and Erythroleucoplakia. In: Brennan, P., Aldridge, T., Dwivedi, R. (eds) Premalignant Conditions of the Oral Cavity. Head and Neck Cancer Clinics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2931-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2931-9_5

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