Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran
2 Dentist
Abstract
Statement of Problem: The oral cavity is an environment for the appearance of many types of complications. The geographic tongue is one of the most prevalence oral lesions. In many studies, the effects of hereditary and environmental factors and effective infections on this lesion have been studied. Purpose: The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prevalence and clinical characteristic of geographic tongue. Also, the relation between this lesion with age, sex and some type of diseases were studied. Materials and Method: For this descriptive, cross- sectional study, 837 students were studied at Kerman medical university. Data were collected by completing the related forms and clinical examination, and were analyzed by statistical program SPSS 11.5, using T- test and χ² test. Results: It was found that, 104 out of 837 students had geopraphic tongue. Most lesions (74%) manifested a typical appearance consisting of a central atrophic area bounded by a raised white circinate line; the remaining lesions were characterized as solely atrophic patches.The most observed lesions were in the lateral borders of tongue in 85 cases (81.7%). The relation between fissure tongue with geographic tongue was significant (p<0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence and clinical appearance of studied geographic tongue in many students is in consistent with the results of other reasearches in different parts of the world.The present study shows a significant relation between fissured and geographic tongue.Key words: Frequency, Geographic tongue, Clinical characteristics, Students
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