The oral mucosa serves as a protective barrier against trauma, pathogens and carcinogenic agents. It can be affected by a wide variety of lesions and conditions, some of which may be harmless or with serious complications. Identification and institution of proper treatment of these lesions are an important part of total oral health care. Knowledge of clinical characteristics of oral mucosal lesions such as morphology, location, and duration helps in proper diagnosis and in identifying the type of oral mucosal lesion. The aim of the study is to determine the prevalence of oral mucosal lesions in elderly population. This is a retrospective study and the data is acquired from the patient archives of the department of Oral Medicine and Radiology. A total of 727 case histories were reviewed. Cross verification of data was done by photographic verification. Internal and external validity were verified. The required patient details were entered in the excel sheet. The data is transferred to SPSS for statistical analysis. Chi square test was used to find out association between different variables. The prevalence of oral mucosal lesions in elderly population was found to be 73.72 %. Male predilection (41.54 %) was seen for the oral lesions. The age group 50 - 55 years (30.81 %) was the most affected by the oral lesions and the lesions leukoplakia (16.09 %) and denture stomatitis (6.74 %) were the most common lesions. Educating patients about the ill effects of tobacco smoking and about proper denture maintenance can curtail the rising numbers of these lesions.
