Oral cancer biopsy in general practice

Attitudes to biopsy procedures in general dental practice

“…These include: fear of medico-legal implications, 5 unfamiliarity with biopsy technique, 11,12 a lack of faith in personal diagnostic skills and the contention that biopsy is a specialist procedure. 6 There is also concern that if the lesion proves to be malignant the GDP is not equipped to inform the patient they have cancer. 10 To clarify current opinion, questionnaires were devised to obtain information on:…”

“…1 Others encourage GDPs to biopsy suspicious lesions thus assisting in the early detection of oral cancer. [1][2][3][4][5] However surgeons may prefer to see oral lesions undisturbed by biopsy scars, 6,7 although there is no detailed information on their views on biopsy by GDPs.…”

Challenges in the Early Diagnosis of Oral Cancer, Evidence Gaps and Strategies for Improvement: A Scoping Review of Systematic Reviews

“…This would considerably shorten the diagnostic interval as it would avoid referral to a specialist and would facilitate the referral of a case already diagnosed and ready to start the treatment process directly [6,33,82,85,[89][90][91][92][93]. However, very few general dentists perform oral biopsies (between 7% and 32% as published for different countries in the world) [94][95][96][97][98][99][100]. Specific training in this field would solve this problem.…”

La biopsia oral en el contexto del precáncer y del cáncer oral

“…En este sentido, se encuentran indicadas en lesiones aparentemente inflamatorias que no mejoran o desaparecen en dos semanas, tras eliminar los irritantes locales. También deberían biopsiarse las lesiones que interfieren con la función oral, lesiones de etiología poco clara, particularmente cuando se asocian a dolor, parestesia o anestesia y lesiones intersticiales en la musculatura lingual, bucal y labial (1,2,3,4).…”