Some lesions of the oral mucosa such as leukoplakia and erythroplakia may develop into squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). At present, however, there is no method available to predict malignant transformation. It is known that the grade of dysplasia is related to the potential malignant development, but this is unreliable as the only indicator. In 64 hyperplastic lesions and 85 SCC of the oral mucosa, a correlation between the expression of the mutated tumor-suppressor gene p53 and the dysplasia of the lesions was found. Ki 67 was used as a proliferation marker. The results imply that expression of mutated p53 is an indicator for potential malignant development in benign lesions of the oral mucosa.