Giant cell lesions of the jaws: evaluation of nucleolar organizer regions in lesions of varying behavior.

To examine whether giant cell lesions of the jaws (GCL) of varying behavior could be separated histologically, a number of GCL were studied using the AgNOR staining technique for nucleolar organizer regions. The mean AgNOR count of mononuclear cells from recurrent lesions (1.73 +/- 0.15) was slightly higher than that of the aggressive lesions (1.54 +/- 0.21) and much higher than that of the non-aggressive/non-recurrent lesions (1.33 +/- 0.14). Similarly, the mean AgNOR count of the multinucleate giant cells of the recurrent lesions (1.52 +/- 0.14) was slightly higher than that of aggressive lesions (1.34 +/- 0.092) and much higher than that of non-aggressive/non-recurrent lesions (1.26 +/- 0.05). Statistical analysis showed a significant difference between the mean number of AgNORS of recurrent lesions and non-recurrent/non-aggressive ones in both the mononuclear and multinuclear population (p < 0.05).