Oral Lesions Diagnosed during Oral Cancer Prevention Campaign in Fernandópolis, Brazil, 2015

Abstract

Background: To describe oral lesions diagnosed during oral cancer prevention campaign performed in Fernandópolis, Brazil, in 2015.

Active search screening for oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer in the city of Piracicaba

“…However, they did not show up for consultation. Our data were similar to those reported by Sankaranarayanan et al, 25 in which patient compliance was 58.88%, but compliance rates were lower than those reported by Monteiro et al, 20 Andrade, 1 and Tomo et al 21 in which the rates were as high as 96%, 81.25%, and 78.26%, respectively. Furthermore, Monteiro et al 20 reported that patients attending to his screening program were "health literate," which explains the high compliance.…”

“…In the current study, the prevalence of oral lesions was 10.38% and that of OPMD and SCC was 04.34%, which is in accordance with other studies. 17,[19][20][21] If we consider only high-risk patients, the prevalence of OPMD and SCC rises to 6.07%, which is slightly higher than what has been observed in previous studies. 17,[19][20][21] Chang et al 19 reported a prevalence of positive lesions of 5.20%, but the high prevalence might be because their study was performed at a tertiary health care academic medical center, thus showing a higher chance of diagnosing positive lesions, given that patients at a hospital are more likely to have a disease.…”

“…Meanwhile, other studies have shown prevalence rates of 1.18% to 4.15% for OPMD and SCC. 18,20,21 In another study, with methodology similar to ours, in which only high-risk patients were screened, Andrade 1 reported a prevalence of 3.20% for OPMD and SCC. Thus, we believe that screening programs focusing on high-risk patients will most likely show a prevalence of OPMD and SCC ranging from 03.20% to 06.07%.…”

“…These data suggest that a larger number of patients can be seen if screening programs are conducted in patients' households. Given that this might not be the easiest way to perform screening, we believe, just like Tomo et al, 21 that a higher compliance could be observed if information on the benefits of the early diagnosis of lip and oral cavity cancer is provided. This fact can be observed in screening programs for breast cancer, a well-known disease by the lay population, which show a high compliance rate.…”

“…Since then, this method has been applied to several diseases, such as breast cancer and lip and oral cavity cancer. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] Visual examination in screening programs has already been shown to have good sensitivity and specificity in detecting OPMD and SCC, regardless of the examiner's experience in diagnosing OPMD and SCC or of whether or not the examination is performed by a dental surgeon. [15][16][17] Speight et al 18 have already reported that opportunistic screening for high-risk patients has shown to be cost-effective and that it could be even more effective if targeted at patients aged 40 to 60 years.…”