Histopathological diagnosis in pediatric stomatology: A 43-year retrospective study of 1,480 cases from a Brazilian institution

the aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence of histopathological diagnoses in oral biopsied tissues obtained from a Brazilian pediatric population. an analytical, cross-sectional retrospective study was performed with biopsy files of patients ≤14 years of age from a Brazilian oral pathology laboratory over a 43-year period. Data included sex, age, location, and diagnoses. The prevalence was calculated by means of relative frequency. Associations between sex, age groups and diagnoses were verified with Pearson's chi-square test. from 19,456 oral biopsies, 1480 (7.6%) were obtained from patients aged ≤14 years. Most children were 10–14 years of age (60.1%) and females (55.1%), with an overall M:F of 1:1.2. Children aged 0–9 years and males had a higher frequency of lesions of the oral mucosa, whilst the 10–14 year age group showed a higher frequency of cysts, odontogenic tumors, and salivary gland lesions. The latter was also significantly higher in females. Samples consisted mostly of soft tissue lesions (53%) obtained from the lower lip (30.7%). Intraosseous lesions showed a slight predilection for the mandible (21.2%). Salivary gland lesions (28.8%) was the most common diagnostic category, followed by reactive lesions (18.8%), and cysts (16.1%). Mucocele (33.5%), dentigerous cyst (6.7%), and fibrous hyperplasia (5.9%) were the top three histopathological diagnoses. Malignant lesions affected only 0.9% of this population. our results were similar to other retrospective studies. Due to the low frequency of oral biopsies in children, data on the prevalence of oral pathology in this population might aid in the clinical and histopathologic diagnoses.