Recent Advances in the Early Diagnosis of Oral Cancer: A Systematic Review

Introduction: Oral cancer survival rates are strongly dependent upon the stage in which the diagnosis is being made. Patients diagnosed with oral cancer within the localized stage have a substantially greater chance of successful treatment, and there is a greater chance of morbidity if the patient is diagnosed with cancer in later stages. Successful early detection symbolizes one of the superlative techniques which would eventually increase the oral cancer survival rate and quality of life worldwide. This study aimed to illustrate and provide awareness of current trends and recent advances in early diagnostic tools of oral cancer and to differentiate the validity of diverse initial detection methods. Methods: This research is a systematic review. The evaluation was confined to articles published in the past 15 years (i.e. 1999-2016). Searches were conducted both manually and electronically. A “manual exploration” was made by methodically examining key journals available in the library of the institution; documents and data were retrieved from the online databases PubMed and Google Scholar. Results: In total, 19 articles were reviewed. Conclusions: Oral cancer detection techniques can provide real-time diagnoses and are non-invasive. At present, large multicenter trials are necessary to determine the sensitivity and specificity of these individual and combined techniques and to evaluate and develop their ability to detect and manage potentially malignant and malicious oral lesions.