Prevalence of soft tissue oral lesion in elderly and its relations with deleterious habits.

Introduction: With ageing, the oral mucosa becomes more susceptible to external stimuli.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of soft tissue oral lesion in elderly and its relations with deleterious habits.

Materials And Methods: It was a quantitative research conducted at the dental clinic of UNIFOR, Fortaleza-CE, in the period from 1998 to 2006. The sample consisted of all 756 records of the elderly, and the data were processed by SPSS 15.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

Results: The majority (63.0) were women, age 60-92, mean age 67 ± 6. The most significant proportions were married (48.4%), retired (42.3%) and incomplete primary school (31.5%). It was found a prevalence of 18.3% of oral lesions, with the risk being 1.6 times higher (p = 0.030) among youngest (up to 65 years) and 1.7 times higher among smokers (p = 0.048). Although this risk is 1.6 times higher among those who drank alcohol, it was not statistically significant (p = 0.122).

Conclusion: The elderly showed a high prevalence of oral lesion, being the youngest, the smokers and the alcohol consumers those most vulnerable to the emergence of these diseases. Dental services need to implement programs of elderly care and health education, essential to clarify the risks and their associations with oral diseases, aiming to promote health.