Abstract
There exists a considerable literature on tumors of the oral region, but little work has been done to study oral tumors in children. A comparison of the rates of incidence with respect to location, sex and age of Japanese children, including a comparison of published materials concerning adults and children in other countries is very important. In the present paper,69 cases of oral tumors in children (under 16 years of age), who were referred to the Dental Hospital of Iwate Medical University for the past 12 years, were examined and classified clinico- and histopathologically. The results were as follows:
1) Tumors composed 29.7 per cent of all biopsied and operated specimens in children.
2) The incidence of tumors occurring in the soft tissue decreased with age, and conversely, the incidence of tumors occurring in the jaw bone increased.
3) Almost of all of the tumors were benign, malignant tumor being found in only 5.8 per cent of the cases.
4) The most common regions of soft tissue where tumors occurred were the cheek, tongue, gingiva and lip, with angiomas being the most frequent histopath ologically.
5) 82.9 per cent of the jaw-tumors was of the odontogenic type, and two thirds of these odontogenic tumors occurred in the mandible. The most common histopathological types of tumor were odontoma, ameloblastoma and odontogenic fibroma. Non-odontogenic tumors in the jaw bone included osteoma, benign osteoblastoma, fibroma and giant cell tumor.
6) Malignant tumors consisted of four cases, three of which were non-epithelial origin.
Based on the above-mentioned data, wefound that the incidence of odontogenic tumors in children was higher than other reports. As this was due to geopathological factors as well as other factors, further studies in this area are therefore necessary.
