A 10-year retrospective study on malignant jaw tumors in Iran

Objective: The aim of this study was to review cases of malignant tumors of jaw bones diagnosed in 2 pathology centers in Tehran, Iran, during a 10-year period. Materials and methods: Patients' records were seen at 2 teaching pathology centers of Shahid Beheshti University between March 1999 and March 2009 with histologic diagnosis of any type of malignant jaw tumors. The records were analyzed for frequency, age, sex, site, as well as clinical, radiographic, and histopathologic findings. Results: Of 30,706 biopsies, 4767 (15.5%) were diagnosed as oral and maxillofacial lesions. Among these, 720 cases were tumoral and 67 cases were malignant jaw tumors. Osteosarcoma (41.79%) was the most common tumor in this review, which was followed by mucoepidermoid carcinoma and ameloblastic carcinoma, respectively. Patients' ages ranged from 9 to 71 years, with a mean of 38 years and male predominance. Conclusions: There are limited studies on malignant jaw tumors in literature, but comparing our result with the available data, there were differences regarding frequency and age distribution. This may be related to racial and geographic characteristics. More studies on other population are needed.