SARS-COV2 Associated Oral Lesions- A Review

Introduction: COVID-19 disease is caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus and it was declared pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11,2020. The coronavirus infection has an affinity for ACE2 receptors and by attaching to them, the virus enters the host cells. Along with many body organs like lungs, kidney, liver, upper respiratory tract, nervous system, skeletal muscles, ACE2 concentration is also found in abundance in epithelial cells of tongue and salivary glands.

Materials and Methods: Recent studies, researches, documents and case reports published in the world medical literature in the year 2020-2021 were searched and documented in our study. The search engines used were PUBMED, google scholar, WEB OF SCIENCE etc.

Results: Dysgeusia, xerostomia, sore throat, aphthous and herpetiform ulcers, candidiasis, enanthema, Kawasaki like lesions were the most common among various oral manifestations. Others includes plaque like changes, gingival inflammation, necrotizing gingivitis, erythema -multiforme, angina-bullosa like lesions, Melkersson-Rosenthal Syndrome, Oral mucormycosis etc.The sites of infection mainly include tongue, gingiva, hard and soft palate, buccal and labial mucosa etc.

Conclusion: The etiopathogenesis of such lesions cannot be directly corelated with COVID-19 and factors such as stress, immunosuppression, co-infections, secondary lesions, opportunistic infections, systemic diseases, poor oral hygiene etc. must be considered. Management of stress is an important factor. In this review article various oral lesions are discussed in COVID-19 infection states in detail. The importance of earliest diagnosis of oral lesions is to be kept in mind to prevent further complications.