Year : 2018

Volume : Volume 9

Issue : Issue 2

Address for correspondence :
Dr. Lalbahadur L Sadhu.
LalbahadurLSadhu@gmail.com

Abstract

Background:  Diagnosis holds the utmost importance for any treatment planning and an incorrect diagnosis can lead to adverse outcomes. Oral ulcerative lesions might be quite challenging to diagnose and differentiate basis on their clinical presentation. This review aims to introduce and establish an updated decision tree for its diagnosis based on the symptoms presented. Literature search was carried using specific keywords like “Oral lesions” “ulcerative” “Diagnosis”, etc. using Boolean apparatus. Various search engines and specialized databases were used including PubMed, PubMed Central, Medline Plus, EBSCO, Science Direct, Scopus, Embase, and authenticated textbooks were used to find relevant topics by means of MeSH keywords mentioned above. Finally, English articles published since 1995 to 2019 by medical and dental journals such as original research, metaanalysis, systematic reviews, case reports were apprised and categorized to different subgroups based on number and duration of lesions. In total 25 entities were organized in the form of decision tree in order to help clinicians establish a step wise logical diagnosis.

Keywords: Oral mucosal lesion, Acute oral lesions, diagnosis, decision tree.