Evaluation of the factors associated with sublingual varices: a descriptive clinical study

Abstract

Background: Age is considered as an important factor for the development of sublingual varices (SV). It has been suggested that some other conditions such as gender, systemic diseases, smoking, denture wearing may play a role in aetiology. However, there are a limited number of studies investigating these associations. This study was perform to evaluate association between SV and the conditions which are described as possible risk factors previously. Materials and methods: A total of 691 patients (470 females, 221 males) who attended for comprehensive clinical examination were included in the study. Age, gender, systemic health, venous varix of the lower extremities, smoking status, denture wearing were recorded during the history taking. SV were classified into two categories: stage 0 (few or none visible) and stage 1 (moderate or severe). Tongue photographs were taken from a group of these patients. For the evaluation of intra-observer reliability, 60 photographs of tongue were re-evaluated by the same observer. Intra-observer reliability was evaluated using Kappa statistics. Pearson c 2 test and Fisher's exact test were used to assess SV in relation to each variable, and variables showing associations with p < 0.05 were selected for the multivariable analysis, then logistic regression analysis was applied. Results: Kappa value of intra-observer reliability was 0.91. SV were significantly associated with age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.08, p = 0.000), hypertension (OR = 2.3, p = 0.007) and denture wearing (OR = 2.17, p = 0.02). Conclusions: The presence of SV is associated with hypertension and denture wearing as well as aging. More detailed studies are needed to prove causative relations between SV and systemic diseases.

Influence of Hypertension and Other Risk Factors on the Onset of Sublingual Varices

“…Same results were reported by other authors [19] that did not found any signi cant gender difference.…”

“…The present study investigates a large number of risk factors in uencing the development of sublingual varices in a very large sample. Until now, only few studies focused the attention on the relation between SV and risk factors such as gender, age, diabetes mellitus, smoking and hypertension in a large population [10,19], without distinguish the different grade of hypertension. Thus, in our work, beside normotensive subjects, we examined three different hypertension situations, such as new diagnosed, resistant and compensated, clinically identi ed, excluding subjects presenting either masked hypertension or white coat syndrome [15][16][17][18] that could alter the blood pressure evaluation by using the ambulatory measurement along the 24-hour.…”

“…Beside the studies concerning the in uence of age and gender on the presence of SV on the tongue, other authors investigated the relation between SV and other potential risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease and denture wearing and to be vegetarians [4,6,8,10,12,19]. In particular, some authors [4,6] founded that SV were signi cantly associated also with smoking, denture wearing, and cardiovascular disease.…”

“…Moreover, some authors [10,19] found that SV were signi cantly associated with resistant hypertension and smoking, observing that the prevalence of SV in ex-smokers was higher than that of current smokers and concluding that the smoking cannot be a contributory factor of SV onset [19].…”

Pigmented Fungiform Papillae of the Tongue and Lingual Fimbriae as Single Presentation in Adult: A Case Report and Literature Review

“…The normal variant in the oral mucosa is defined as a normal anatomical structure, with no pathological condition that can be found in the routine oral examination, but it can be misdiagnosed as a pathological condition. 1 Median rhomboid glossitis, 2 3 erythema migrants, 4 hairy tongue, 1 fissured tongue, 5 prominence of circumvallate papilla, 1 lingual varices, 6 and ankyloglossia 7 are the common normal variants that can be found in the dorsum and ventral of the tongue. Other variants such as pigmented fungiform papillae of the tongue and lingual fimbriae, which are rare conditions, are not widely reported and explained in the reference.…”