Who discovered hairy leukoplakia? And, an interesting trend in orthodontics

Dear DrBicuspid Member,

Back in the early 1980s, before the acronym "AIDS" had entered our vernacular, clinicians at the University of California, San Francisco began seeing a growing number of young male patients with oral lesions unlike anything they had seen before.

John S. Greenspan, BDS, PhD, was one of several oral pathologists at the university who were called upon to figure out what the lesions were. And so began a multidecade career in AIDS research for Dr. Greenspan, who among other things is credited with helping to discover hairy leukoplakia and its relationship to HIV and AIDS.

In our latest Leaders in Dentistry profile, Features Editor Donna Domino talked with the charismatic Dr. Greenspan about the challenges he and his colleagues faced in the early days of the AIDS epidemic and how their research not only saved peoples' lives but revolutionized infection-control procedures in dentistry.

Meanwhile, over in the Cosmetics Community, a growing number of parents and their children are going into orthodontic treatment together, according to the British Lingual Orthodontic Society and the American Association of Orthodontists. What is driving this trend? Read more.

And a simple scoring system that supports visual exams shows promise for improving the detection of oral premalignancies in a general health setting, according to a new study in Oral Oncology. Click here to read more about STOP -- the Screening Tool for Oral Premalignancies -- in this latest Oral Cancer & Diagnostics Community feature.