Fractal analysis in oral leukoplakia

Abstract

Introduction: Fractal analysis (FA) quantifies complex geometric structures by generating a fractal dimension (FD), which can measure the complexity of mucosa. FA is a quantitative tool used to measure the complexity of self-similar or semi-self-similar structures. Aim and Objective: The study was done to perform the FA of oral mucosa with keratotic changes, as it is also made up of self-similar tissues, and thus, its FD can be calculated. Results: In oral leukoplakia, keratinization increases the complexity of mucosa, which denotes fractal geometry. We evaluated and compared pretreated and post-treated oral leukoplakia in 50 patients with clinically proven oral leukoplakia and analyzed the normal oral mucosa and lesional or keratinized mucosa in oral leukoplakia patients through FA using box counting method. Conclusion: FA using the fractal geometry is an efficient, noninvasive prediction tool for early detection of oral leukoplakia and other premalignant conditions in patients.

Keywords

• Fractal analysis
• fractal dimension
• keratinization
• premalignant