Patients with oral preneoplastic lesions and integration of dental pathology referrals

Follow‐up study of veterans with white and red oral mucosal lesions at Veterans Affairs Dental Clinics

“…Nearly all the participants in the present study with those lesions were current or former cigarette smokers. To prevent oral cancers, motivating Little is known about how patients in community settings with leukoplakia and other types of oral lesions are monitored (Thompson et al, 2022). Investigators surveyed dentists about 2 decades after community dentists sent biopsies of oral lesions in 2000 and 2001 to the University of Minnesota for histopathological analysis that were found to have dysplasia.…”

“…Another strength of this study is the use of standardized procedures and calibration of the participating dentists. Publications (Nelson & Thompson, 2019;Thompson et al, 2022) et al, 2006) and red and mixed white and red colors (Jayasooriya et al, 2020).…”

“…Responding dentists conducted regular follow‐up of three‐fourths of the patients, and 11% of those patients developed oral cancer. However, only 41% of the dentists contacted responded to the questionnaire, and the status of the patients of the non‐responding dentists is unknown (Thompson et al, 2022 ). The investigators noted the unmet need for oral cancer surveillance and follow‐up care of these dysplasia patients and their concern about surveillance and follow‐up care in population subgroups with limited access to health care, such as those who do not have regular dental care or health insurance.…”

“…Another strength of this study is the use of standardized procedures and calibration of the participating dentists. Publications (Nelson & Thompson, 2019 ; Thompson et al, 2022 ) have noted the importance of capturing clinical features of oral lesions and better integrating that information with histopathologic findings to help identify patients at highest risk of developing oral cancer. However, dentists need tools to enable them to provide clinical information about oral lesions in a standard, consistent way.…”

Early Diagnosis and Diagnostic Delay in Oral Cancer

“…When dealing with the early diagnosis of oral cancer, special attention should be paid to precancerous lesions, because about 11.3% of them undergo malignant transformations, including the transformation of 42.8% of severe dysplasias into carcinoma [ 9 ]. Efforts are being made to disclose those potentially malignant oral disorders more prone to malignant transformations [ 10 , 11 ].…”