Prevalence of Tobacco Usage in Oral Leukoplakia: A Retrospective Study

Abstract

Tobacco is a common name for the plants belonging to the genus Nicotiana and nightshade family. It contains a highly addictive stimulant which is used in cigarettes and other smokeless forms of tobacco. The product has a lot of carcinogens and other harmful mixtures which lead to the causation of oral submucous fibrosis, leukoplakia and erythroplakia. In this study, we would be seeing how common it is to have a history of tobacco usage in the patients diagnosed with Leukoplakia between march 2019 and march 2020 in Saveetha dental college. Materials and methods: This study was done in Saveetha dental college, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India. The study data were taken between March 2019 to March 2020. We took patients reporting with oral leukoplakia and checked their history for Smoking or smokeless tobacco usage. These data are recorded by the dental students in saveetha dental college. A total of 100 patient's record was taken and among the patients with smoking, history was identified. The number of patients with and without smoking/smokeless tobacco usage record was deduced. Results: There were a total of 100 participants, in which 95 were males and 5 were females who reported to the clinic with oral leukoplakia. In this sample, a total of 76 patients had a homogenous variant of leukoplakia while 24 patients had a non-homogenous variant. Eighty-four patients had the habit of smoking, while 16 patients had the habit of smokeless tobacco usage. There were 100 participants and with the result deduced from the data obtained from the participants, it is clear that smoking is one of the major etiology of Oral leukoplakia.