Oral Lesion Description: A Mini Review

Introduction: Lesion description has a key role in correct diagnosis and timely treatment. The aim of this study was to review of morphological descriptive terms, which are used in oral lesion description. Methods: An electronic search of the literature was conducted in various database including: Google Scholar, PubMed, PubMed Central, Science Direct, and Scopus databases, for relevant articles using the following keywords: “oral lesion”, “terminology”, “semiology”, ”glossary”, ”morphology”, “primary lesion”, “basic lesion”, “dermatology” ,“oral medicine”, and “stomatology”. About 60 articles were found; out of which, 45 were relevant to our topic of interest. Finally, we included 22 articles that were closely related to the topic of interest. In addition, 4 text books were also used in this study. Results: After data collection, the following 20 descriptive morphological terms were found. These terms divided into two groups as primary and secondary lesions: (1) Primary lesion: macule, patch, papule, plaque, nodule, tumor, weal (or hive), vesicle, bullae, pustule, abscess, cyst, purpura (petechia & ecchymosis), and hematoma. (2) Secondary lesion: erosion, ulcer, sinus, fistula, and scar. Conclusions: The correct and updated descriptive terminology should be considered by dentists in oral examination.