Prevelance of pyogenic granuloma in pregnant womens-a systematic review

Pyogenic granuloma is one of inflammatory hyperplasias seen in the oral cavity. This lesions is unrelated to infection and in reality arises in response to various stimuli such as low grade irritation, injury, hormonal factor. Gingival changes in pregnancy were described as early as 1898, even before knowledge about hormonal changes was available Pregnancy tumor is a benign hyperplastic gingival lesion occurring during pregnancy. It is indistinguishable from pyogenic granuloma arising in non pregnant females or males 1,2. Objective: This systematic review, analyses the prevalence of oral pyogenic granuloma in pregnant women and to determine particularly in which trimester they are common. Materials and Methods: Articles on oral pyogenic granuloma in pregnant women published in English language were thoroughly searched in pubmed, mesh, science direct database, Manual searching was also done with preset inclusion and exclusion criteria. The characteristics like the mean prevalence frequencies of pyogenic granuloma in pregnant women were analysed. Results: The search methodology used in this review revealed 687 publications of which 6 articles were included and the remaining 547 articles were excluded from the review. In 6 studies reviewed, the prevalence of pyogenic granuloma in pregnant females is 2.15% - 3.70% .But data in these studies were inadequate to derive the prevalence of pyogenic granuloma and the trimester of pregnancy in which they are frequent. Conclusion: Pyogenic granuloma is seen to be more common in pregnancy next to periodontitis. The increase in hormone concentrations, exposed to local irritants favours the development of pyogenic granuloma. With increasing evidence of periodontal infection in association with pre term birth, further rigorous research is needed to determine any relation in pregnancy tumour with pre term birth.