La patologia orale nel paziente pediatrico. The oral pathology of the pediatric patient

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this paper is to de-scribe and investigate the diag-nostic and clinical aspects of oral diseases that are very common during the paediatric age. They may concern soft tissues, hard dental and bone tissues and may be oral manifestations of systemic diseases. Oral pathologist must be aware of these diseases, some of which must be intercepted early, to be able to implement a timely and decisive treatment plan or send the patient to an ultra-specialist fa-cility that deals with oral pathology. MATERIALS AND METHODS During the paediatric periods, the patients may be affected by several oral lesions. Firstly the simplest congenital lesions, that frequently concern very much the patients themselves and their parents. In many cases it is sufficient to recog-nize the pathology assisting the patients only in the management of their consequence, as in the case of the geographic tongue, or the fis-sured tongue, both clinical situation that expose the patients to mucosal superinfections, by bacteria or yeasts, and that for this reason need a special care by the patient to avoid the onset of such a problem. Children are also frequently affected by infectious diseases. In this compound, there are many situations in which the oral manifestations can precede the systemic diffusion of the infection, as in the case of the Koplik’s spots in the Measles or the strawberry tongue in the scarlatina, their knowledge and early interception is fundamental to avoid the epidemic diffusion of these pathologies keeping away the patient from school, pro-tecting also the other children from suffering of the same disease. Last but surely not least, the pae-diatric patients are also frequently interested by more severe pathol-ogies, such as the neoplasms of the mesenchymal tissues or of the hemopoietic tissues. Whereas the first are extremely destructive and frequently characterized by a very poor prognosis, the latter can be in many cases intercepted in their first phases if the clinicians know that their early manifestation can be localized on the gums, in which abnormal gingival growth and frequent bleedings may suggest the suspicion of such a severe diseases addressing him/her immedi-ately to the specialistic treatment that in many case may lead to the healing, so resulting fundamental in saving lives of the patients. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS All the aforementioned situations emphasize greatly the importance of a deep knowledge of the oral pa-thologies in paediatric age. It is evident that the great importance of young people health is only one of the questions that must be relevant for the clinicians. It is fundamental to underline once more that the in-tegrity of teeth or dentition are sole-ly one of the targets, and maybe not the most important, that we must pursue when we face and assume the care of these patients. We must consider that we are responsible of the general health and life of our patients and we cannot ignore the importance of a clear diagnosis of the whole conditions of our patients who really put their lives confidently in our hands. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE It is evident that, as for adult patients – and for many reasons – even more than in adults patients, It is therefore necessary for the oral pathologist to integrate their action and knowledge with other medical specialists, to implement, where it is possible, a multidisci-plinary management of important clinical cases recovering the principles of the clinical semeiology, the sole that can enhance the health aspiration of the young patients.