Prevalence of oral lesions in 13‐ to 16‐year‐old students in Duzce, Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of oral lesions in 13- to 16-year-old students. A cross-sectional survey was carried out on students in Duzce, a province in the western Black Sea region of Turkey. A total of 993 children aged between 13 and 16 from eight secondary schools were examined. Oral lesions with recurrent behavior, if observed, were recorded at the time of examination. Venous blood samples were obtained for detecting hemoglobin levels. Two hundred sixty adolescents (26.2%) were diagnosed with at least one oral mucosal lesion at the time of the examination. Thirteen different mucosal alterations were diagnosed, and the most common lesions were angular cheilitis (9%), linea alba (5.3%), and aphthous ulceration (3.6%). The correlation between occurrence of mucosal lesions and sex was not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Statistical evaluation of the data revealed a significant relationship only between the presence of angular cheilitis and anemia (P < 0.05). This study is the first epidemiologic study of oral mucosal lesions in adolescents in Turkey. Angular cheilitis was the only oral mucosal lesion that had a significant correlation with anemia.