Diagnosis of the angular hyperkeratotic lesions and the incidence of the etiologic factors

Abstract EN

Background : hyperkeratotic lesions located at the angle of the mouth are common among patients attending dental clinics.

Most dentists are unaware of it since the patients are not seeking care.

The purpose of the present study was to find out the incidence of the diagnosed lesions and their relation with the etiologic or initiating factors.

Materials and methods : A total of (112) patient’s (62) males and (50) females having angular hyperkeratotic lesions were selected from patients attending the dental clinic in Baghdad dental school.

The clinical diagnosis and the progression of the lesions were conducted by using 1 % toluidine blue stain to confirm the premalignant potentials and to delineate the margins of the lesion for the biopsy.

Microscopic examinations were done for the confirmation of the final diagnosis.

The associating factors like smoking, alcohol, dental irritation, prosthesis, systemic diseases, and angular chelitis were recorded in the patient information sheet for the result analysis.

Results : the results showed that the benign hyperkeratotic lesions were the higher (36.6 %) in distribution, while the malignant neoplasms were the 2nd (25.89 %) in frequency, followed by premalignant lesions (21.42 %), lichen planu (12.5 %) and benign growth (3.57 %).

Smoking habit was the most common associating factor (54.6 %), followed by angular chelitis (48.2 %), dental irritation (43.7 %), systemic diseases (35.7 %), dental prosthesis (28.5 %) and alcohol consumption 0.05 %.

Conclusion : the hyperkeratotic lesions occurred in a wide range of ages.

The benign lesions were the most common types.

However a significant number of cases had premalignant and malignant changes.

The presence of the associating factors acting alone or in combination were having a role in the existence of the lesions.

The premalignant potentials increase with age and the chronicity of the associating factors such as smoking and angular chelitis were having a significant role in existence of the lesions.

In addition, the results showed that the angular hyperkeratotic lesions existed in the majority of the patients were bilateral in behavior.