INTRODUCTION:
Inflammatory papillary hyperplasia is a lesion of the mucosa which
usually involves the hard palate only, but which may occasionally extend
to the mucosa of the residual ridges.1 The lesion is a
painless, firm, pink or red, nodular proliferation of the mucosa. Most
patients are unaware of its presence.1,2 In general,
IPH is associated with the use of removable upper dentures although in
rare instance it also has been found in dentulous patients with no
history of a dental prosthesis.3 It is more prevalent
in males (20.5 %) than females (6.9 %), and usually located in
anterior region of maxilla (79%).4 Predisposing
factors like, smoking, use of tobacco, alcohol consumption, Candidal
infection, patients wearing a maxillary complete denture against a
mandibular distal extension partial denture, sex of the patient and
various systemic diseases like diabetes mellitus are considered to be
responsible for IPH.5 In the literature reviewed, we
have found only three cases of IPH in non-denture-wearing patients till
date. This case report describes IPH in a patient who has never worn a
maxillary denture and identifies etiologic factors for this rare
presentation.