Worldwide incidence of odontogenic tumors.

PURPOSE: The objective of the study was to determine the relative frequency of odontogenic tumors (OTs) in the world population, directing an epidemiologic profile to these lesions.

METHODS: Was conducted a search in epidemiologic studies involving OTs that are listed by PubMed and Ovid, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library, embracing the period from January 1960 to January 2010, to verify their incidence worldwide. We identified 195 articles, of which 19 articles were selected, considering the location, age, sex, histologic type, and World Health Organization classification.

RESULTS: A total of 8544 OTs were found. The results showed a low frequency of malignant OTs in selected works. The most frequent tumor was ameloblastoma (39.6%), followed by odontoma (20.1%) and the newly included keratocystic OT (13.8%).

CONCLUSIONS: These OTs are uncommon lesions in world population, and malignant OTs are very rare. The relative frequency of different kinds of OTs, the age, and the sex distribution show a marked geographic variation in incidence of those lesions. This was particularly notable in the ameloblastomas and odontoma, with the incidences being relatively well and weighted showing similar values to an average when compared with previous studies.