Oral white lesions: who, what, where, when, how and why?

Diagnosis and management of oral white lesions can be challenging in clinical practice owing to their highly variable aetiology and different prognoses ranging from benign, often reactive mucosal lesions through to potentially malignant conditions or frankly invasive oral cancers. In this paper, the author proposes a pragmatic, clinically based approach to assessment, diagnosis and treatment based on a diagnostic decision making tree and six classic information-gathering questions: who, what, where, when, how and why?