Modifications of Gallego staining and its dental application.

Background: The objectives of the study are to employ modified Gallego staining in pathology and to specifically evaluate the hard tissue apposed to odontogenic epithelium in order to aid in the diagnosis.

Methods: Lillie's modification of Gallego's stain was utilized as a reference to create a fresh batch of the stain. The archival and running cases of 2021-2022 was screened for odontogenic pathologies, yielding approximately 46 cases, among these four cases were selected which required evaluation of the hard tissue matrix apposed to odontogenic epithelium for its characterization. The modified Gallego staining was employed in the soft tissue sections of these cases under controlled environment. The staining results were evaluated.

Results: The stain was used in cases to stain dentinoid deposition as green color in hybrid ameloblastoma, archegonous cystic odontoma, dentinogenic ghost cell tumor and also in other cases like calcifying odontogenic cyst. Bone presented as green in color, cells as pink color and collagen as green-pink. This helped in the correct diagnosis of these cases facilitating the correct treatment modality.

Conclusions: In the field of oral pathology, there are a multitude of lesions which are odontogenic with the diagnosis of few of them hinging on the characterization of hard tissue matrix found in close approximation to odontogenic epithelium implying an inductive capability to the odontogenic epithelium. This particular modified Gallego stain has been able to help in diagnosis of few such cases in our repertoire of cases.