Epidemiological Pattern of Lip Premalignant Lesions in an Iranian population: A 13-Year Evaluation

This study investigated the prevalence and pattern of lip premalignant lesions in patients referred to the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini and Shohada-E-Tajrish Hospitals between 2004 and 2016.

This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted on the pathology reports of patients retrieved from the archives of the Pathology Departments of the Cancer Institute of Imam Khomeini and Shohada-E-Tajrish Hospitals between 2004 and 2016. The gender, age, lesion location (upper lip, lower lip, commissure, lip in general, not stated), pathological type, and clinical diagnosis of the lesions were extracted from patient records. The Fisher's Exact test was used to analyze the data by SPSS version 16.

Of a total of 237,392 patients, 40 (0.02%) cases had lip premalignant lesions. The mean age of patients was 63.71±14.11 years (range 3 to 92 years). The prevalence of lip premalignant lesions was higher in males, with a male to female ratio of 4:1. The most common location and histopathological type of lesions were the lower lip, and actinic keratosis (60% of the cases), respectively.

Lip premalignant lesions were observed in 0.02% of patients. Although this rate is lower than the global prevalence of precancerous lesions of the lip and oral cavity (4.47%), because of the high malignant transformation rate of lip premalignant lesions, every clinician must take part in early detection of these lesions by clinical examination. To confirm the diagnosis, biopsy may be requested for histopathological diagnosis.