Current and Emerging Oral Cancer Clinical Diagnostic Approaches

Current and Emerging Oral Cancer Clinical Diagnostic Approaches
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Chapter Summary
Oral cancer remains one of the most common cancers but still records a survival rate that is below 50 percent. The survival rate could be significantly enhanced through the early detection and diagnosis of oral cancer in patients. In the initial stages, the cancer is preceded by the emergence of oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs), but it is highly challenging for one to determine whether OPMDs will eventually translate into oral cancer. While a physical examination is still applied in the patient examination, the current main approaches used for the clinical diagnosis of cancer are vital staining, oral cytology, and optical imaging. Notably, the three methods can discriminate between lesions and normal cells but they have differing levels of specificity and sensitivity. In addition, the three approaches are mainly dependent upon the experience of the pathologists. With this in mind, there have been efforts to develop detection and diagnosis methods that rely on biomarkers for the detection of oral cancer in various specimens. Biomarkers are considered more reliable given that they offer molecular evidence on the existence of a given process in a cell. The potential molecules that are currently being researched for the development of biomarkers are proteins, mRNAs, and DNA methylation products.
In addition, there are indications that future technologies will have a significant impact on the early detection and diagnosis of cancer. Nanotechnology will yield novel imaging approaches to facilitate the generation of accurate images of normal and cancerous cells and complement clinical decision-making. AI-based systems will revolutionize the detection and prediction of oral cancer as machines use data to predict the likelihood of OPMDs translating to oral cancer. Notably, LOC shows the most promise among future technologies as it will ease the detection of oral cancer while ensuring the cost-effectiveness of the process.
Contents Chapter Summary. 1 Introduction. 3 Current Clinical Diagnostic Methods. 6 Vital Staining. 6 Oral Cytology. 8 Optical Imaging. 9 Methods under Development 11 DNA Methylation Biomarker 11 mRNA Biomarker 12 Protein Biomarkers. 13 Future Technologies. 14 Nanotechnology. 14 AI-Based Systems. 19 Lab-on-Chip. 21 Conclusion. 21 References. 24
Emerging Oral Cancer Clinical Diagnostic Approaches
Introduction
Oral cancer remains one of the most common forms of head and neck cancer globally, with an estimated 350,000 new cases recorded every year worldwide. The number of deaths reported globally every year due to oral cancer is roughly 170,000. In definition, oral cancer describes the various malignant lesions that are observed in the oral structure including the mouth floor, anterior parts of the tongue, the lips, gingiva, buccal mucosa, and in retromolar trigone (figure 1). Ninety percent of cancer manifest as squamous cell carcinoma, with the use of multidisciplinary oncological treatment that combines the use of surgery, and radiation therapy being reliably used to facilitate the treatment stage....