Oral medicine (Synonyms are  dental medicine&oral and maxillofacial medicine or stomatology) is a specialty focusing on mouth and nearby structures.

The importance of mouth in medicine has been recognized since the earliest known medical writings. For example, Hippocrates, Galen and others considered the tongue to be a “barometer” of health, and emphasized the diagnostic and prognostic importance of the tongue. However, oral medicine as a specialization is relatively a new subject.

Oral medicine is concerned with clinical diagnosis and non-surgical management of non-dental pathologies affecting the orofacial region.

The conditions that oral medicine is concerned ranges from simple apthous ulcers to cancerous lesion of oro-facial region. Moreover, it involves the diagnosis and follow-up of pre-malignant lesions of the oral cavity, such as leukoplakias or erythroplakias, viral infections like herpes simplex to pemphigus vulgaris and of chronic and acute pain conditions such as paroxysmal neuralgias, continuous neuralgias, myofascial pain, atypical facial pain, autonomic cephalalgias, headaches and migraines. Another aspect of the field is managing the dental and oral condition of medically compromised patients such as cancer patients suffering from related oral mucositis, bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaws or oral pathology related to radiation therapy. Additionally, it is involved in the diagnosis and management of dry mouth conditions (such as Sjogren’s syndrome) and non-dental chronic orofacial pain, such as burning mouth syndrome, trigeminal neuralgia and temporomandibular joint disorder.