The prevalence of oral mucosal lesions in croatian children

The prevalence of oral mucosal lesions in children and young adolescents are scarce and vary throughout the world; therefore, we investigated the prevalence of oral mucosal lesions in children and young adolescents referred to the Department of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry in Zagreb. Out of 4523 patients referred to the Department of Oral Medicine during the period of three years, there were 142 children and young adolescents with oral mucosal lesions aged from one year to 19 years. Data from patient charts were organized into working sheets, which included age, sex, detailed medical history, clinical presentation of the oral disease, laboratory, microbial and biopsy fi ndings when needed. Oral mucosal lesions were recorded according to the World Health Organization. The most prevalent lesion was primary herpetic gingivostomatitis (21.12%), followed by recurrent aphthous ulceration (14.08%), traumatic lesions (11.9%) and geographic tongue (13.38%). There were no signifi cant sex diff erences in the prevalence of primary herpetic gingivostomatitis and recurrent aphthous ulceration (p=0.704). No signifi cant diff erences were observed in the prevalence of oral diseases according to age groups, except for recurrent aphthous ulceration and primary herpetic gingivostomatitis. A statistically signifi cant diff erence was found in the occurrence of recurrent aphthous ulceration and primary herpetic gingivostomatitis according to age groups. Primary herpetic gingivostomatitis was more frequently recorded in children from 1-6 years and recurrent aphthous ulceration in older age groups. There was no correlation between oral mucosal diseases and systemic diseases.