A Retrospective Study of Tongue Lesions from Thailand

Objectives: To determine the prevalence and clinico-pathologic feautres of tongue lesions from Thailand
Methods: Biopsy records of the participating institutions were reviewed for lesions on the tongue diagnosed during 1998-2017. Demographic data were collected from the biopsy records. Location of lesions on the tongue was arbitrarily classified as dorsal, lateral, ventral surfaces and tip of the tongue as well as a combination of sites. Lesions of the tongue were classified as reactive/inflammatory, developmental, immune-mediated, benign, premalignant, malignant, infectious and miscellaneous categories. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics using SPSS version 17.0.
Results: Of the 44188 accessioned cases, 2153 cases (4.87%) were diagnosed from the tongue. The age of the patients ranged from 3 to 93 years with the mean±SD = 45.26±20.48 years. Regarding gender, 1285 patients (59.77%) with tongue lesions were females. The female-to-male ratio was 1.49:1. The majority of the tongue lesions were encountered at the lateral border of the tongue (47.66%) followed by dorsal surface of the tongue (21.50%), ventral surface of the tongue (20.79%) and tip of the tongue (7.80%), respectively. Most of the tongue lesions in the present study (53.74%) fell into the reactive/inflammatory category followed by malignant tumor category (17.65%), benign tumor category (9.15%), premalignant category (8.50%), immune-mediated category (4.04%), developmental category (2.83%), infectious category (2.74%) and miscellaneous categories (1.35%), respectively. Irritation fibroma (Focal fibrous hyperplasia) was the most prevalent lesion (18.99%) followed by squamous cell carcinoma (16.91%) and mucus extravasation phenomenon (mucocele) (14.26%), respectively.
Conclusions: This study offers new perspective into the study of tongue lesions based on histopathological examination and provides invaluable database for clinicians when formulating the diagnosis of tongue lesions. It also demonstrates the differences between the pediatric and the elderly patients with tongue lesions.