Vilar Villanueva, MartaSomoza Martín, José ManuelBlanco Carrión, AndrésGarcía García, AbelGarcía Carnicero, TamaraMarichalar Mendía, XabierGallas Torreira, MercedesGándara Vila, Pilar2022-09-262022-09-262022Vilar-Villanueva, M., Somoza-Martín, J. M., Blanco-Carrión, A., García-García, A., García-Carnicero, T., Marichalar-Mendía, X., Gallas-Torreira, M., & Gándara-Vila, P. (2022). Importance of the vaporization margin during CO2laser treatment of oral leukoplakia: A survival study. Oral Diseases, 00, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1111/odi.143451354-523Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10347/29249Objectives: the main purpose of this study was to assess the response of oral leukoplakia to CO2 laser vaporization treatment, as well as determining possible factors that may affect recurrence of lesions. Materials and methods: a retrospective study was conducted, in which the medical records of patients who had been clinically and histologically diagnosed with oral leukoplakia and treated with CO2 laser between 1996 and 2019 at the Oral Medicine Teaching Unit of the Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Santiago de Compostela were reviewed. Results: fifty-eight patients were included: 36 female and 22 male subjects, with a mean age of 63.7 years old (SD ±13.1). The average follow-up time was 57.5 months (SD ±57.9). A relapse rate of 52.6% was determined. Of all the studied variables, the margin was the only one for which a statistically significant association with recurrence of lesions was demonstrated (p < 0.05). Conclusion: the vaporization of lesions using CO2 laser with a safety margin of at least 3 mm from the clinical limits of OL is a key factor in preventing recurrenceeng© 2022 The Authors. Oral Diseases published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are madeAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacionalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Carbon dioxide lasersLeukoplakiaMargins of excisionMouth mucosajournal article10.1111/odi.143451601-0825open access