Frequency of Oral Mucosal Disease in Referral Patients to Dental Faculty of Tabriz in 2007

Background & objectives: Oral disease is a significant burden to all countries of the world. Since there is little know about this in Iran we decided to identify of oral mucosal disease in patients referred to Oral Medicine Center affiliated to Tabriz Dental School. Methods: A consecutive sample of admitted patients to OMC between April to June 2007 were included in this study. We employed a standard questionnaire in order to Results: Eight hundred two patients were completed the requested questionnaire. Seventy percent was female. The mean age of the study sample was 32.68 (SD=12.25) years. Approximately 70% of subjects had oral lesion, %19.2 had normal mucosa and %21.60 of patients had oral mucosal lesions that need to follow and control. The most common lesions were ankiloglossia (%29.7) then fissural tongue (%25.7) and coated tongue (%23. 7). Conclusions: Many patients attending the center were unaware of oral lesions in their soft oral tissue which needed to follow up. This emphasizes that examination of soft oral tissue should be considered by health policy makers in oral health agenda at national level