Focal epithelial hyperplasia (Heck's disease) in two Chinese females

Abstract

Focal epithelial hyperplasia, or Heck's disease, is a relatively rare virus-induced benign disease. To the best of the authors’ knowledge it has not been reported in an ethnic Chinese population. The authors report two cases of focal epithelial hyperplasia (FEH) in Chinese patients, which were clinically and histologically in accord with FEH. In particular, the lesions in one case were located on the gingival mucosa, which is rarely affected by FEH. DNA extracted from paraffin-embedded specimens from the two patients was tested for the presence of human papilloma virus followed by specific polymerase chain reaction testing for 16, 18, 13, and 32 subtypes in order to confirm the clinical diagnosis.