Prevalence of Oral and Craniofacial Manifestations of Hematological Dyscrasias at Shiraz Nemazee Hospital

Background: hematological disorders may present with a number of non-specificorofacial manifestations that must be diagnosed and referred to specialists for treatment.since the orofacial manifestations can be the first clinical presentation which indicatesthe presence of an underlying disease, it is important for dentists to be aware of thesemanifestations. the present study aims to evaluate the orofacial presentations of somehematological diseases in order to familiarize dentists with these manifestations.methods: this descriptive cross-sectional study evaluated the oral conditions ofpatients recently hospitalized with histories of blood dyscrasia and bone marrowtransplantation in shiraz nemazee hospital during 2010-2011. from 50 patients,there were 33 (66%) males and 17 (34%) females. the age of participants ranged from12-77 years of age.results: examined patients had the following manifestations: head and neckregion lymphadenopathy (42%), hairy tongue, atrophy of the oral mucosa, ulcers, redand white lesions, candida albicans infection and gingival lesions that includedspontaneous gingival bleeding, gingival hypertrophy and ecchymosis, in addition todiffuse herpetic infections on the buccal mucosa and bony lesions. the most commonblood dyscrasia in the study patients was acute myeloid leukemia (aml) (48%). ourfindings determined that lymphadenopathy (42%) was the most common orofacialmanifestation of hematological diseases.conclusion:on occasion, dentists maybe the first medical professional to encounterhematological diseases. since early detection of these disorders can increase patientsurvival, it is necessary for dentists to become completely familiar with these oralmanifestations.