Leukemia and its Oral Manifestations in Children Younger than 12 Years Referred to Tehran Pediatric Hospitals

Acute leukemia is a malignant, rapidly progressive disease of the bone marrow and blood that most commonly occurs in children. Abnormalities of blood caused by leukemia and also accumulation of leukemic cells in different parts of the oral cavity cause a wide spectrum of oral manifestations. The current study aimed to estimate the incidence of leukemia among children in Tehran and evaluate oral manifestations of the disease as potential diagnostic markers. In this retrospective cross-sectional study, medical records of children younger than 12 years referred to Mofid hospital, Ali-Asghar hospital and Children’s medical center from 1997to 2011 were retrieved from the hospital archives and evaluated. Records of 100 patients with leukemia were randomly selected for evaluation. The obtained data were transferred to the questionnaires. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 11.5 and Chi-square test. Of the 3,789 children younger than 12 years referred to the hematology department of Tehran pediatric hospitals from 1997 to 2001, 1,372 had acute leukemia, put of which 94% had acute lymphoblastic leukemia and 5% had acute myeloid leukemia. Boys aged 5 - 10 years made up 69% of the acute leukemia cases. The most common oral manifestation was gingival bleeding and petechiae. The most important disease other than leukemia was anemia in the patients. The present study highlights the role of dentists to detect oral manifestations of leukemia and their possible role in early diagnosis of patients with the disease.