Spectrum of white lesions in the oral cavity- A review

---

Review Article

Author Details : Savita S Shiragur*, Sahana Srinath, Satish T Yadav, Akalya Purushothaman, Ninad V Chavan

Volume : 10, Issue : 1, Year : 2024

Article Page : 3-13

https://doi.org/10.18231/j.jooo.2024.002

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

The white lesions occurring in the oral cavity consist of 5% of the oral pathoses but some of these like leukoplakia, lichen planus, proliferative verrucous leukoplakia, etc have a high potential of malignant transformation up to 0.5-100%. As they are visualized as shades of white, they are of diagnostic challenge. Some of the lesions are also associated with other skin lesions viz. lichen planus, pemphigus, etc. The etiology, pathogenesis, and mode of treatment varies with the different type of lesions. This spectrum consists of lesions from harmless reactive lesions to dysplastic and malignant entities. The white appearance of these lesions is may be because of hyperkeratosis, acanthosis, intracellular/intercellular edema, necrosis of the epithelial cell or increased fibrosis. They are seen as patches, papules, or plaques unilaterally or bilaterally in the oral cavity involving buccal mucosa, tongue, palate, labial mucosa, gingiva etc. While there are a few clinical and histological elements that assist in the identification of this wide range of white lesions to arrive at an accurate diagnosis, further lending a hand in providing appropriate treatment for the same.
 

Keywords: Oral cavity, White lesions, Plaque, Patch, Dysplasia, Edema, Hyperkeratosis.

How to cite : Shiragur S S, Srinath S, Yadav S T, Purushothaman A, Chavan N V, Spectrum of white lesions in the oral cavity- A review. J Oral Med Oral Surg Oral Pathol Oral Radiol 2024;10(1):3-13

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.