Genomic mutations and proof of causation between dysplasia and squamous cell carcinoma in medicolegal cases: a useful approach or a waste of resources?

It has been suggested that oral stratified squamous epithelium may be implicated in field cancerisation.1,2 Several other studies have examined the clonal relations between dysplasia and oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC),3,4 and it is now obvious that the relation between dysplasia at a specific site in the oral cavity, and a subsequent SCC that has arisen at the same site several years later, is a complex rather than a simple progression.5 Those of us who see patients with mucosal abnormalities often treat lesions with low-grade or high-grade dysplasia