Analysis of oral manifestations of leukemia: a retrospective study

To evaluate in detail the oral complications of leukemia at initial presentation. Associations between oral manifestations and laboratory data were also investigated.

A retrospective study of 230 cases was conducted to investigate the nature and incidence of oral manifestations at initial presentation. The following data were determined for each patient: age, sex, haemogram at diagnosis (which included haemoglobin, red blood cell counts, differential white blood cell counts, platelet counts), classification of the type of leukemia's systemic symptoms and oral manifestations at the initial physical examination including the dental consultation.

It was revealed that the type of leukemia diagnosed, except with CML, is related to the age prediliction of patients. The incidence of leukemia is higher in males than in females. The most common manifestations of leukemia are lymphadenopathy (71.4% in ALL; 45% in AML), laryngeal pain (52.7% in ALL; 37.3% in AML), gingival bleeding (43.2% in AML; 28.6% in ALL), oral ulceration, and gingival enlargement. Fever (92.2%) was the most common symptom in patients with all types of leukemia. Platelet counts from 25,000 mm-3 to 60,000 mm-3 are at sufficiently low levels to result in spontaneous bleeding. Most of the patients had WBC counts of greater than 10,000 mm-3. Only 12.6% of patients had normal WBC counts.

It was concluded that the age prediliction and prevalence of oral manifestations are closely related to the type of leukemia.