Resumo

KNIEST, Greicy; STRAMANDINOLI, Roberta Targa; AVILA, Lúcia Fátima de Castro  e  IZIDORO, Ana Claudia A. dos Santos. Frequency of oral lesions diagnosed at the Dental Specialties Center of Tubarão (SC). RSBO (Online) [online]. 2011, vol.8, n.1, pp. 13-18. ISSN 1984-5685.

INTRODUCTION: Epidemiological studies of different oral diseases characterize the studied populations and provide references for the development of treatment and prevention strategies. AIM: To determine both the frequency of the most common oral lesions and the epidemiological profile of patients treated at the Dental Specialties Center (DSC) of the city of Tubarão / SC, from 2003 to 2008. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A retrospective study was performed, by analyzing a preexisting databank of all patients treated at the center, since its implementation. The following variables were studied: sex, age, origin, presence of oral lesions, biopsy to confirm the diagnosis, and pathology results. Then, data were stored in an Excel worksheet and submitted to statistical descriptive analysis, through the correlation among variables and determining the frequency of each lesion. RESULTS: From 140 patients, 89 were female and 51 male. Age ranged from 4 to 81 years, with an average age of 47.2 years. Considering the total number of patients, 121 presented an oral lesion at the time of the appointment. Five patients showed two different and concomitant lesions, totaling 126 lesions. Thirteen patients did not present any oral lesion at clinical examination. Six patients complained about xerostomia and 04 about hyposalivation with some other concomitant lesion, but no additional examination was performed to determine changes in salivary flow. A total of 54 biopsies was performed for diagnostic confirmation. 97.6% of the lesions were benign, among which oral candidosis (14.3%), inflammatory fibrous hyperplasia (12.6%), mucocelis (9.5%), and fibroma (5.5%) were the most frequent. Three cases of malignant neoplasia were found, all confirmed as squamous cell carcinoma. CONCLUSION: Most of the patients (86.4%) showed an oral lesion at the time of the appointment, and the benign lesions totalized almost 98% of the cases. Oral candidiasis was the most prevalent lesion, followed by inflammatory fibrous hyperplasia. Concerning to the epidemiological profile of the treated patients, approximately 64% were female, with a mean age of 47 years-old.

Palavras-chave : epidemiology; prevalence; diagnosis; oral; mouth diseases.