A Study on the Distribution and Morphology of Lingual Papillae by in vivo Observation of Lingual Mucosa Using a New Diagnostic Device for Oral Mucoscopy

To investigate the in vivo morphological characteristics of the lingual mucosa, 34 healthysubjects (17 males and 17 females) between the ages of 19 and 20 were selected. Afterobtaining informed consent, macroscopic images of the tongue mucosa and serial images ofthe lingual mucosa were obtained using an oral mucoscope. The sequential images weremontaged and simultaneously magnified images of six regions of the tongue mucosa wereacquired. The morphology of the tongue papillae distributed in the mucosa was observed andcompared between males and females. With the tongues of the subjects, not only was there adifference in the density of distribution of fungiform papillae between the tongue apex andthe central part of the tongue body, but there also seemed to be a clear difference in the shapeand size of the filiform papillae. However, both filiform papillae and fungiform papillaeshowed no clear difference in morphology. We were not able to find any clear differences inmorphology, size, or density of distribution between the sexes