Characterization of oral biopsies from a geriatric population.

A retrospective search was performed to find the histological diagnosis for all lesions recorded by an oral pathology service for patients 65 and older from 1969-2002. The search was subcategorized into two age groups and the 20 most common diagnoses from these categories were characterized by patient gender and race. Lesions then were classified into one of seven modified etiopathogenic categories. Of the 52,774 cases recorded during this time, 7,854 involved patients aged 65-84 and 393 cases involved patients 85 and older. Inflammatory lesions were the most common category of lesion in patients over the age of 65. Among patients aged 65-84, fibroma was the most common diagnosis, while squamous cell carcinoma was the most frequent diagnosis among patients 85 and older. Neoplastic lesions (epithelial dysplasia and squamous cell carcinoma) comprised 11.7% of the diagnoses among patients aged 65-84 and 18.6% of the diagnoses among patients 85 and older. These data indicate that patients 85 and older demonstrated a statistically significant increased frequency of squamous cell carcinoma compared to patients in the 65-84 age group.