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One of the most contagious of the oral papillary lesions is focal epithelial hyperplasia or Heck's disease, another HPV-induced epithelial proliferation first described in 1965 in
Note: click on underlined words for more detail or photos.
One of the most contagious of the oral papillary lesions is focal epithelial hyperplasia or Heck's disease, another HPV-induced epithelial proliferation first described in 1965 in Native Americans. The level of contagion is exemplified by the fact that in some isolated populations up to 40% of children have been affected. Today it is known to exist in numerous populations and ethnic groups and to be produced by one of the subtypes of the human papillomavirus, HPV-13, and possibly HPV-32. Where the infection is endemic among children, adults seem to have minimal evidence of residual oral lesions and so the lesions are presumed to eventually disappear on their own.
Focal epithelial hyperplasia is somewhat different from other HPV infections in that it is able to produce extreme acanthosis or hyperplasia of the prickle cell layer of the epithelium with minimal production of surface projections or induction of connective tissue proliferation. The mucosa may be 8-10 time