Oral soft tissue conditions in Down syndrome patients

Introduction: Down syndrome is an abnormality caused by an extra chromosome 21. Oral soft tissue conditions are one of the most frequently reported clinical features in Down syndrome because their prevalence is relatively high. The purpose of this study was to determine the various oral soft tissue conditions in children with Down syndrome from various literatures. Methods and Material: The literature review was conducted using the Scoping Review method following the frameworks published by Arksey and O'Malley (2005) and developed by Levac, et al. (2010) and Peters, et al. (2015). Screening and selection of studies was carried out using PRISMA-ScR. Articles were searched using keywords, boolean operators, limit functions, and inclusion criteria on the Pubmed, EBSCOHost, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar search engines. Results: There were 12 articles that met the criteria and were analyzed. The most commonly reported oral soft tissue conditions in Down syndrome are fissured tongue, macroglossia, and cheilitis. Fissured tongue varies from 28% - 78%, macroglossia varies from 36.8% - 94%, total & angular cheilitis varies from 6.3% - 51%. Incompetent lip, geographic tongue, everted lower lip, chapped lower lip, protruded tongue, gingivitis, and several other soft tissue conditions have also been reported in only a few articles. Conclusion: The most common frequently oral soft tissue conditions reported in the Down syndrome population are fissured tongue varies from 28% - 78%, macroglossia varies from 36.8% - 94%, and total & angular cheilitis varies from 6.3% - 51%. Keywords: Cheilitis, Down syndrome, Fissured tongue, Macroglossia, Oral soft tissue conditions