ABSTRACT
Peripheral exophytic lesions are one of the most prevalent oral lesions and the most important cause of patients's referral to oral medicine department. Determination of frequency of oral peripheral exophytic lesions and demographic findings and clinical presentation can help us for diagnosing, prevention and management of them, so a retrospective 4-year study was carried out by purpose of determining the frequency of different types of peripheral exophytic lesions in patients referred to oral medicine department of Mashhad Dental School. Descriptive and retrospective study was done on files of 166 patients with peripheral exophytic lesions referred to oral medicine department of Mashhad Dental school from 2004-2007. Demographic [Age, sex ...], clinical [size, number, location] and histopathological data were recorded and described by SPSS software and descriptive statistical analysis and table and charts prepared. In our study, peripheral exophytic lesions were more frequent among females [F/M: 3/2]. The mean age of patients was 40-60 years [33.5%]. Gingiva was the most common location for exophytic lesions in oral cavity [44.0%]. Inflammatory hyperplasia lesions were the most prevalent peripheral exophytic lesions and SCC was also the most common tumor in oral cavity. Duration in most of lesions [71.3%] was between 1 to 12 month and the most important chief complaint of patients was swelling [76.8%]. Although most of epidemiological patterns of oral exophytic lesions were similar to other researches, this research revealed recording of clinical observations in patients' files was essential for epidemiologic studies and carefulness in clinical and histopathologic examination is necessary and leads to correct diagnosis