oral and jaw lesions in adults: a 19-year retrospective study in northern iran

background and objectives: there are a few studies on histopathologic type of oral lesions especially from iran. the aim of this study was to survey the oral lesions in babol, northern iran. methods: the histopathology records were retrospectively reviewed for all lesions of oral cavity and jaws, during the years 1990 to 2009. the data were collected from the archive of pathology and analyzed based on age, gender, site of lesion and histopathologic type. results: from the 465 studied specimens, the mean age was 34.6 ± 20.3 years old; female to male ratio was 1.1: 1. the most frequent lesions were inflammatory/reactive (60%), tumoral (25%), cystic (14.2%), and tumor like lesions (0.8%), respectively. the most common inflammatory lesion was mucocele as 54 cases (19.4%). ameloblastoma was the most common odontogenic tumor (55.5%). the most common odontogenic cyst was radicular cyst (44.8%), and the most common non-odontogenic cyst was mucus retention cyst (75%). conclusion: it seems that the malignant oral and jaw lesions have been more prevalent in this study compared to others, thus, the patients must be biopsied earlier to rule out malignant oral lesion in histologic examination.