Objectives: Pathologists often analyse patient data from records of specimens accessioned in their departments and draw conclusions from such analyses. An analysis carried out on 2616 jaw cysts over a 32-year period showed, amongst others, that radicular cysts (RC), dentigerous cysts, and odontogenic keratocysts (OKC) occurred much more frequently in whites than blacks, while in the case of the nasoplatine duct cysts (NPDC) racial distribution was equal. Consequently, certain conclusions were drawn: in the case of DC's it was suggested that blacks had fewer impacted teeth. Our study sought to undertake a similar survey but for a later time period and compare these results with those of the earlier survey in order to assess changing patterns of disease, if any, and validity of data. Materials and methods: Pathology reports of all cysts accessioned in departmental archives for the period 1992-2004 were reviewed. The diagnosis, age, gender, race, site, and special features were recorded and data from the two time frames compared. Results: This study included a total number of 947 cysts. The relative frequency of various cysts was virtually identical. Most of the demographic data was the same. However comparison of race distributions showed a significant reversal, with the NPDC, RC, OKC and DC occurring significantly more frequently in blacks than whites and also that DC's occur second most commonly around maxillary centrals and laterals as compared to permanent maxillary canines in the previous time frame. Gender distribution for the NPDC reflected greater involvement of females. Conclusions: Do these differences mean altering patterns of disease or merely reflections of demographics of the population now served by the Wits Oral Health Centre? We believe the latter is true. The results of this study illustrate the hazards of drawing conclusions from non-standardised data.