Asian Journal of Medical Research and Case Reports

“Oral leukoplakia” alludes to white keratotic plaques having excluded other known lesions and etiologic factors except smoking. Due to the potential of malignant transformation of this epithelial lesion, the purpose of the present case-series was to determine the clinical and histologic precancerous features of this lesion. The study was conducted at the oral medicine department at the dental faculty, Kerman. Demographic, clinical and histopathologic characteristics of biopsy proven oral leukoplakia cases were collected from the documented records from 1999 to 2017 and registered in pre-designed charts. Finally, out of the 47 patients, the consistency rate between the clinical and histologic diagnosis of this lesion was 85.1%. The incidence of epithelial dysplasia was 48.9% (38.3% mild, 8.5% moderate and 2.1% severe) whereas 53.2% of the lesions were non-homogenous and 66% of the patients were smokers. Inasmuch as dysplasia was reported in the approximately half of the cases, right diagnosis of leukoplakia should be done by the dentist to prevent malignant transformation. Proper understanding, recognising, identification and differentiating this lesion are necessary for proper treatment.