key: cord-0880911-0zhdo1od
authors: Marques, Nelson Pereira; da Silveira, Denise Maria Mendes Lúcio; Martelli, Petrônio José de Lima; Martelli, Daniella Reis Barbosa; de Lucena, Edson Hilan Gomes; Martelli‐Júnior, Hercílio
title: Brazilian Oral Medicine and public health system: The enormous impact of the COVID‐19 Era
date: 2020-11-09
journal: Oral Dis
DOI: 10.1111/odi.13677
sha: 059a979c23615fcfb43b37b738bfbef311665e3e
doc_id: 880911
cord_uid: 0zhdo1od

nan

Dear Editor, Due the coronavirus disease 2019 , several restrictive measures have been implemented by the government (Chaudhry et al., 2020; Nussbaumer-Streit et al., 2020; Oliveira et al., 2020; Simões e Silva et al., 2020) . In this way, dentistry services underwent forced changes in their operation and function Martelli Júnior et al., 2020) .

Recent studies highlighted the difficulties and damages from the current COVID-19 pandemic to dental services in general and Oral Medicine (OM) and Oral Pathology particularly Chen et al., 2020; Cunha et al., 2020; Izzetti et al., 2020; . Thus, this investigation aimed to compare Brazilian Unified Healthcare System (SUS)-oriented OM clinical care in Brazil before and during the pandemic so far.

To measure OM care in the SUS, we evaluated the number of clinical consultations performed between March and July of 2015 to 2020. The data were extracted and analyzed from the public database (DATASUS) (http://tabnet.datas us.gov.br/cgi/tabcgi.exe?sia/ cnv/qauf.def). Table 1 Considering that the early diagnosis of oral cancer is essential for the effective treatment of the patient, and Brazil does not have legislation that authorizes tele (oral) medicine Villa et al., 2020) , this reduction in the number of clinical consultations of OM becomes even more worrying. A recent study on oral biopsies during the COVID-19 pandemic shows an alarming decrease in mouth biopsies performed in all Brazilian Regions in 2020, showing a decline of over 60% in the entire country (Cunha et al., 2020) .

Brazil already has approximately 144,600 deaths and more than 4.8 million confirmed cases of contamination (October 1st, 2020) (https://covid.saude.gov.br/), and it is observed that there is a quantitative deficiency of clinical care by OM that significantly compromises the scenario of oral diseases in the SUS. Thus, quick and safe actions are needed to regularize or at least minimize both the critical immediate risks as well as the possible long-term COVID-19 pandemic negative impacts over oral diseases COVID-19 pandemic on oral diseases. 

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