Hanseníase e odontologia: Revisão narrativa da literatura

Abstract

Due to the high prevalence of leprosy in Brazil and the fact that the upper airways are the most important gateway of the bacteria into the body, leprosy should be more discussed in dentistry courses. Therefore, the purpose of this course conclusion work was to perform a narrative review of the available literature on the relationship between leprosy and dentistry addressing classification and clinical forms of the disease; sensory alterations of dental interest; oral manifestations; impact of leprosy treatment and assistive technologies on oral health; relationship between the teaching of dentistry and leprosy and the current prospects of leprosy after the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, a search was performed in the PubMed database until the year 2023, using the combination of descriptors related to the theme, such as: "Dentistry" AND "Leprosy". No restrictions were applied regarding the year of publication and type of study. Additionally, only articles written in English and Portuguese and related to the topics described in the objective were included in this narrative literature review. Precarious oral health conditions are frequent in most leprosy patients, although lesions are more evident only in the most severe forms of the disease. The treatment of leprosy with polychemotherapy (PQT), which associates bactericidal with bacteriostatic contributes to the remission of oral lesions, but reduces salivary flow, which may increase the patient's susceptibility to oral infections. Therefore, public oral health policies should be incorporated into the treatment of leprosy with TQP. In addition, dental treatment may contribute to the reduction of leprosy reactions triggered by inflammatory processes arising from dental infections and/or periodontal diseases, which can cause irreversible neural sequelae. In short, dentistry has an important role in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of leprosy, and must be integrated more comprehensively into public health programs and the dental curriculum to effectively combat this disease and provide better quality of life to infected patients.