PEDIATRIC HISTIOCYTOSIS - CHARACTERIZATION, PROGNOSIS, AND ORAL INVOLVEMENT

Purpose: Forty-five children with histiocytosis were reviewed to chara cterize such a group and to establish the prevalence of oral involveme nt. In addition, patients with and without oral disease were compared for severity of disease, response to treatment, and incidence of recur rent disease. Patients and Methods: There were more boys (62.2%) than girls (37.8%) among the patients studied. About half (53.3%) were <2 y ears of age. Approximately half of all patients had two or fewer affec ted organ systems at diagnosis. The average length of treatment was 46 weeks. Results: A total 75.6% of patients were alive without disease at the completion of data collection, 15.6% died from the disease, 4.4 % were alive with active disease, and 4.4% were alive with unknown sta tus. Of the patients, 55.6% had long-term sequelae, and oral sequelae were present in 22.2% of the sample. In all, 28.8% of the patients exh ibited oral symptoms at diagnosis, while 44.4% had oral involvement at some point during the course of the disease. Patients with oral sympt oms were treated significantly longer and had more systemic therapy wh en compared with those without oral disease.