Oral Lesion Description: A Mini Review

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.

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.

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.

The correct and updated descriptive terminology should be considered by dentists in oral examination.