to malignant transformation. Oral leukoplakia is a common premalignant lesion in oral mucosa and the incidence of cancer progression into SCC has been reported to be 0~43%. The genetic alterations of oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes and DNA repair genes occur during carcinogenesis. In order to evaluate the role of epithelial cells in the early stage of carcinogenesis, we analyzed the alterations of genetic heterogeneity in epithelial cells of oral leukoplakia samples, using Laser capture microdissection(LCM). The incidence rate of microsatellite instability(MSI) and loss of heterozygosity(LOH) were analysed from the DNA of epithelial cells from 16 leukoplakia samples using adjacent fibroblasts as a normal control. In this study, LOH was found in epithelial cells of all 16 cases of leukoplakias while MSI has been observed in 3 cases. Interestingly, the fibroblasts showed LOH and MSI in some cases, which was confirmed by DNA sequencing. Taken together, this study showed that leukoplakia has multiple genetic alterations in fibroblasts as well as in epithelial cells, suggesting that interaction between epithelial cells and fibroblasts might be involved in the early step of carcinogenesis.