Iqbal A Muhammad Khyani, Masood A Qureishi, Talat Mirza, Rafiq Khanani, Ar Farooq M Umar.
Recent Advances in the Diagnosis of Oral Pre-malignant and Malignant Lesions - A Review.
Pak J Otolaryngol Jan ;29(2):54-8.

Oral cancer is a fatal disease and is the eight most frequently occurring cancer worldwide. It is the most common cancer and constitute a major health problem in developing countries representing the leading cause of death. Oral cancer most commonly occurs in middle aged and older individuals, although a disturbing and alarming number of this malignancy is also being documented in younger adults in recent years.More than 95% of oral tumour, are squamous cell carcinoma which arises from oral mucosal lining. A significant number of it developed from pre-malignant or potentially malignant lesions such as leukoplakia, erythroplakia, lichen planus and oral submucosal fibrosis. Early detection and prompt treatment offer best hope for the patient. This improve survival and diminishes the morbidity. Clinical examination and histopathology of the suspected lesion remains the gold standard for diagnosis and identification of malignant oral lesion. Biopsy being an invasive technique has its surgical and technical limitation for professionals and psychological implications for most patients. These issues can be addressed by detecting the biomarker with non invasive techniques .Accurately identified biomarker may provide new avenues and constitute major target for early cancer detection and risk assessment. Different methods have been used to obtain DNA & RNA for biomarker identification. Oral rinse, swab, brush biopsies and recently saliva have been employed for this purpose. In this review article, we describe the various conventional and novel methods of diagnosis of oral pre-malignant lesions and oral cancer. We discussed the advances in diagnosis on molecular levels by identifying the biomarker through noninvasive methods which are expected to affect choice of treatment and patient’s outcomes.

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