Pediatric histiocytosis. Characterization, prognosis, and oral involvement

Forty-five children with histiocytosis were reviewed to characterize such a group and to establish the prevalence of oral involvement. In addition, patients with and without oral disease were compared for severity of disease, response to treatment, and incidence of recurrent disease.

There were more boys (62.2%) than girls (37.8%) among the patients studied. About half (53.3%) were < 2 years of age. Approximately half of all patients had two or fewer affected organ systems at diagnosis. The average length of treatment was 46 weeks.

A total 75.6% of patients were alive without disease at the completion of data collection, 15.6% died from the disease, 4.4% were alive with active disease, and 4.4% were alive with unknown status. Of the patients, 55.6% had long-term sequelae, and oral sequelae were present in 22.2% of the sample. In all, 28.8% of the patients exhibited oral symptoms at diagnosis, while 44.4% had oral involvement at some point during the course of the disease. Patients with oral symptoms were treated significantly longer and had more systemic therapy when compared with those without oral disease.