Estudo clínico-histopatológico de 38 odontomas

Abstract

Odontoma is the most frequent of the odontogenic tumors and is classified in 2 types: composite odontoma and complex odontoma. The aim of this study was to determine the clinicalhistopathological characteristics of odontomas. This study was a retrospective and observational investigation performed by the analysis of 2.278 histopathological reports from the laboratory of the Service of Pathological Anatomy of the Discipline of Oral Pathology of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, between 2002 and 2007. The studied variables comprised: type of odontoma (composite and complex), age group, gender, race and anatomic location of the tumors. The collected data were organized using the SPSS software version 13.0, and the existence of significant association among the variables were assessed by the chi-square test, considering p < 0.05 as the value for rejecting the null hypothesis. The frequency of odontomas corresponded to 1.7% of the total of cases (38 cases), 20 in men and 18 in women. Caucasians and the 21-40-year-old age group were the most affected, with 63% and 87% of the cases, respectively. The mean age was 32 ± 16.2 years. Regarding the type, 17 cases were composite odontomas and 20 were complex odontomas. There was no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) between the genders, but it was observed a greater predilection of composite odontomas for females, while complex odontomas were more frequent in males. The mandible was the anatomic site most commonly affected by the lesions (69% for the composite odontomas and 62% for the complex odontomas). It may be concluded that complex odontomas were more frequent than the composite odontomas, affecting preferably the male gender and the posterior region of the mandible, even though not presenting statistically significant differences.