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.