Prevalence of tongue lesions in the Indian population

Abstract

Objective: Tongue lesions are a health concern for the dental practitioners and the patients as they constitute a significant proportion of oral mucosal lesions. The aim of the present study was to determine the prevalence of various tongue lesions in the Indian population. Material and methods: 4926 patients attending the Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology were examined for the presence of various tongue lesions during the period from October, 2010 to September, 2012. The age of the patients ranged from 12-80 years with a mean age of 36.51 years. Results: The prevalence of tongue lesions was 12.07%. The most common lesion diagnosed was coated tongue affecting 28.0% of the subjects, followed by geographic tongue (16.4%), fissured tongue (14.9%) and depapillated tongue (11.5%). Males were more frequently affected than females. The most common systemic condition observed in the patients with tongue lesions was anaemia (189), followed by hypertension (47) and diabetes mellitus (38). Conclusion: The high prevalence necessitates adequate awareness of the various tongue lesions in the general population. The dental clinicians should also be knowledgeable about the etiopathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment of these lesions. Key words:Tongue lesions, prevalence, Indian population, coated tongue.

Prevalence and subjective knowledge of tongue lesions in an Indian population

“…A similar existence of coated tongue (28%) has been reported by Patil et al 5 A lesser prevalence of coated tongue has been reported in the studies conducted by various other researchers. 9,10,14 The much higher presence of coated tongue in the study population could be attributed to a lack of awareness and maintenance of oral hygiene due to compromised general health as a result of poor socio-economic conditions in the studied population.…”

“…The results are in close proximity with the lone Indian study conducted by Patil et al 5 However, the study conducted by Al-Mobeerick et al estimated a very low prevalence of 3.96%. 6 Darwazeh et al and Voros et al…”

“…According to the study by Patil et al, anemia was the most common prevalent systemic illness followed by hypertension and diabetes. 5 The association between presence of tongue lesions and systemic conditions has not been researched extensively in the literature and the current study is one of the very few studies which seeks to explore the same. Atrophic glossitis appears as complete or patchy baldness of the tongue caused by atrophy of the lingual papillae secondary to iron deficiency anemia, pernicious anemia, and various other conditions.…”

Determination of Oral Health Status in Patients Admitted to a University Hospital: A Pilot Study

“…Although there are studies that examined only tongue lesions 3,23 , in many studies tongue lesions are included in oral mucosal lesions. 5,13,21,20 In this study tongue lesions were evaluated separately and prevalence was found to be 12.7%.…”

Investigation of Oral Mucosal Lesions in Patients Attending Dermatology Outpatient Clinic: A Study of 1670 Cases

“…6 Literatürde ilginç olarak OML hakkın-daki çalışmaların önemli bir kısmının diş hekimliği bölümlerine başvuran hastalar arasında yürütül-düğü fark edilmektedir. 1,5,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Ayrıca Türk toplumunda OML üzerine yapılmış epidemiyolojik çalışma sayısının da oldukça yetersiz olduğu gö-rülmektedir. [19][20][21][22][23][24] Bu çalışmada herhangi bir deri hastalığı şikayeti nedeniyle dermatoloji polikliniğine başvuran hastalarda OML varlığı değerlendi-rilerek OML tipi, nedeni, sıklık ve dağılım özellikleri araştırılmıştır.…”