• Oral Medicine-Stomatology is a scientific specialty that deals with diseases of the mouth. The term mouth includes: the lips, tongue, cheeks (buccal mucosa), gums (gingiva), palate, floor of the mouth, jaws and salivary glands (parotid, submandibular, sublingual and minor salivary glands scattered in the oral mucosa).

• Diseases of the mouth (oral diseases) show a great diversity in terms of aetiology, signs and symptoms and the degree of risk. Sometimes they're innocent, or they may cause discomfort to the patient eg due to pain, but in some cases some oral diseases may be hazardous for our health.

• Early diagnosis and apparently effective treatment are crucial for the patients and should be done by a specialist doctor in Oral Medicine-Stomatology possibly in cooperation with other medical specialists when necessary.

• The oral diseases generally can be divided into local and in those that are part of systemic diseases.

The most important are:

• Hereditary diseases and dysplastic abnormalities

• Lesions caused by mechanical damage (eg traumatic ulcer, fibroma, pyogenic granuloma, mucous cyst, etc.)

• Damage from heat or chemical causes (burns)

• Allergies

• Diseases of the tongue and lips

• Side effects of drugs

• Autoimmune or immune related diseases (eg lichen planus, pemphigoid, erythema multiforme, pemphigus)

• Cysts

• Infections: microbial (e.g. acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis), Viral (e.g. Herpes Viruses, Human Papillomavirus-HPV, HIV-AIDS), fungal (Candida)

• Diseases of the salivary glands (e.g. Sjogren syndrome)

• Dry mouth

• Blood diseases (eg anemia, leukemia, thrombocytopenia)

• Metabolic Diseases

• Diseases of the gastrointestinal system (e.g., inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's disease)

• Rheumatological autoimmune diseases

• Precancerous lesions (eg leukoplakia)

• Neoplasms benign (e.g. papilloma, lipoma) malignant tumors (e.g., oral squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma, salivary glands adenocarcinomas)