Abstract

Geographic tongue is a disorder of the tongue. It leads to no fatal consequences and so it is considered benign. Almost 3% of world population is reported to be effected by this disorder. This is basically a painless inflammatory disease of the tongue. It appears to be of a particular map like pattern and hence derives its name as the ‘Geographic tongue’. The disease is known to effect women more than men and children are not generally affected by this disease. This disease is associated with loss of loss of tongue filiform papillae while the other types of papillae remain unaffected. Patients normally come up with complain of red patterns on the tongue with white raised border. The conditions are painless but often patients complain of irritation at the spots which increases with consumption of salty, tangy hot or spicy foods. This is not a transmissible disease and if asymptomatic mostly doesn’t need any treatment.