Prevalence and Incidence of Desquamative Gingivitis among Patients Visiting a Private Teaching Hospital in Chennai, India

Abstract

Desquamative gingivitis (DG) is a term indicating epithelial desquamation, erythema, erosion and/or
vesiculobullous lesion of the attached and marginal gingiva. The lesions of DG mainly involve the buccal
aspect of the gingiva. The term desquamative gingivitis is not a specific diagnosis , but describe several
mucocutaneous disorders major of which are oral lichen planus (OLP), mucous membrane pemphigoid
(MMP), pemphigus vulgaris (PV). The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence and incidence of
desquamative gingivitis among the patients visiting the outpatient department of periodontics at a private
teaching hospital , Chennai, India. This is a descriptive study which was performed under a university
setting in which the data of patients who were diagnosed with desquamative gingivitis in the department
of Periodontics at a private teaching hospital, Chennai from June 2019 to March 2020 was collected by
reviewing patients records and the analysis of data of 86000 patients was done. The collected data was
compiled , reviewed, tabulated and imported to SPSS software (version 22.0) for statistical analysis. The
prevalence of desquamative gingivitis was found to be less 0.1% and had a female predilection (67%) and
patients between 50 to 60 years of age were more commonly affected by DG. Most cases of DG presented
with burning sensation in the mandibular gingiva (50%) . The most common treatment of DG was found
to be pharmacotherapy mainly corticosteroids (50%) . Thus the knowledge of prevalence of desquamative
gingivitis and correlation with various parameters is essential in dental practice for clinical implementation.