Oral medicine services: a two-centre study of 99,603 patients between 2015 and 2020

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the patterns of patients managed at the oral medicine service centres at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Otago, New Zealand and Weifang People’s Hospital, Weifang, China. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients’ clinical records were collected from 2015 to 2020. Patient data from electronic and paper records were examined. The data included in this study for each patient were age, sex, ethnicity, source of referral, clinical investigation, diagnosis, and management. RESULTS: There were 99,603 patients included in the analysis. Most of the patients (56.5%–71.0%) were women aged 50 to 70 years. Referrals were typically from internal sources (20.0%–52.7%), medical practitioners (27.5%–29.6%), and dental practitioners (18.3%–28.3%). The main clinical investigations included blood tests (22.1%–25.4%), diagnostic imaging (12.2%–28.3%), and biopsy (9.4%–12.8%). Oral and maxillofacial pathology accounted for 73.9% to 83.3% of all diagnoses. The main treatment was self-care (15.2%–36.6%), and the most prescribed medication was a corticosteroid (26.4%–30.2%). CONCLUSIONS: Most patients in oral medicine clinics were 50 to 70-year-old women. Blood tests, imaging, and biopsy were the main clinical investigations. Most of the diagnoses were oromucosal diseases. The main treatments were self-care and corticosteroid prescriptions.