ABSTRACT Objective To map the literature on management of surgical margins for oral leukoplakia (OL) and proliferative verrucous leukoplakia (PVL). Methods Searches were performed in five electronic databases and gray literature. Studies involving patients undergoing any type of surgical excision of OL or PVL were included. Data extraction focused on surgical technique, margin size, method of margin delineation, and recurrence outcome. Margin size was categorized in centimeters. Results Ninety‐one studies were included. More than half of the studies (54.9%) did not report the width of surgical margins. Among those that did, margins between > 2 and 2 to ≤ 3 mm. Lesions with margins between 3 and 5 mm showed a lower recurrence rate. Conclusion We identified a lack of standardization in the reporting of surgical margins. Excision with 5 mm of clinically healthy tissue should be considered the optimal approach for the surgical management.
Dutra et al. (Fri,) studied this question.