Prevalence of oral leukoplakia

This paper reviews epidemiologic studies on prevalence of oral leukoplakia. Special emphasis is placed on population selection, diagnostic criteria, type and training of examiners and risk factor assessment. Prevalence of leukoplakia in these studies has ranged from 0.6% to 4.6%. Variations in prevalence among the studies could depend on methodology, especially studied populations and diagnostic criteria. Most investigations have investigated the entire available adult population in a geographic region or a random sample. Others have comprised selected populations, such as hospital or clinic patients. Our study has shown that prevalence of oral leukoplakia was 2.2% in a relatively small and highly selected population.