Prevalence of Tongue Anomalies in Hamadan, Iran

Background: Since the earliest days of medicine, the tongue has been considered a good reflection of systemic disease. Hip­pocrates, Galen and others considered the tongue to be barometer of health. In addition, the early diagnose of tongue le­sions help to recognize the some systemic diseases. The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of different mor­phological variations (anomaly) of the tongue in a population of school children aged 6-12 years in Hamadan, Iran. Method: This cross sectional study was held with questionnaires and face-to-face interview among 1600 schoolchildren 6- 12 years old (800 girls, 800 boys) with cluster randomize method were selected and examined. Each school was considered as a cluster that was selected by randomized selections in view of the total sample size. Results: Tongue lesions were found in 39.7% of the children. Overall, the most frequent condition was geographic tongue (27%) and fissured tongue (12.9%). Microglosia and median rhomboid glossitis were in 0.2% of cases. Conclusion: The present study indicates a higher frequency of tongue abnormalities specially geographic tongue than previ­ous studies however further investigation are required to indicate if hereditary and congenital factors play a vital role or if the environmental factors in this region vary with those in their regions. On the other hand the findings from this survey should serve as a baseline for future studies.