Characteristics of patients with orofacial granulomatosis

Orofacial granulomatosis has mostly been described in reports of very small numbers of cases. Few large case groups have been described. The aim of this study was to describe the demographics, symptoms, clinical features and laboratory findings in a large cohort of cases.

Clinical and laboratory data for 119 cases of orofacial granulomatosis who attended oral medicine clinics in Dublin, Ireland, were examined for demographic characteristics at the time of first presentation. The male/female ratio was approximately 1:1, with a median age (and range) of 28 (5-84) years.

Symptoms had been present for a median duration of 12 weeks. A food association was suspected by 30% of patients. The predominant complaint was lip swelling (77%) with only 15% reporting facial swelling, while 8% complained of both. Almost all patients had clinical evidence of lip or facial swelling (95%). Other common extra-oral manifestations were lip fissuring (30%), angular cheilitis (28%) and perioral erythema (28%). Common intra-oral manifestations were cobblestoning of the buccal mucosa (63%), ulcers (36%), granulomatous gingivitis (33%), mucosal tags (29%) and fissured tongue (17%). Over half of the biopsies (56%) performed were reported as typical of orofacial granulomatosis.

This is one of the largest cohorts of orofacial granulomatosis patients to have been described in detail.