This review of the diagnostic accuracy of visual inspection compared with biopsy (gold standard) for the diagnosis or oral cancer and oral potentially malignant dissorders included 18 studies. For malignant lesions the pooled sensitivity was 88% (95%CI; 73% to 95%) and specificity 81%(95%CI; 51% to 95%).
This review of metastatic neoplasms in the oral cavity included 217 observational studies from 33 countries. The 348 cases identified arose from 29 primary sites the most common being lung (21%) and breast (12%).
This review of whether chemotherapy, in addition to radiotherapy and/or surgery for oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancer, results in improved overall survival included 100 studies. the findings indicated some benefit only when used in a few specific circumstances.
This review of the osteoradionecrosis rate in patients with head and neck cancer having toothth extraction performed before radiotherapy included 8 mainly retrospective studies. The pooled incidence rate was estimated at 2.2% (95% CI: 0.6% to 3.9%) although none of the studies controlled for other risk factors.
An updated version of ‘Delivering Better Oral Health, ’ the oral health prevention toolkit published iby Public Health England to provide practical evidence-based guidance for promoting oral health and preventing oral disease is now available.
Manas Dave takes a look at this review aiming to identify the potential risk factors associated with the development of oral mucositis in paediatric patients. While a range of risk factos are higlighted it is worth noting that 80-100% of all children having chemotherapy experience some degree of mucositis.
This review assessing the effectiveness of intraoral stents in reducing toxicities in oral cavity induced by radiotherapy in head and neck region included 7 small studies. While the analysis suggests a beneficial effect from the use of intraoral stents the included studies only provide verylow certainty evidence so further high-quality RCTs are needed.
This Cochrane review update was to estimate the diagnostic accuracy of index tests for the detection of oral cancer and oral potentially malignant disorders, in people presenting with clinically evident suspicious and innocuous lesions.
This review of the evidence on the malignant transformation of oral proliferative verrucous leukoplakia included 17 mainly retrospective observational studies. The overall estimate for malignant transformation was 43.87% (95% CI; 31.93 to 56.13) but only 4 studies were at low risk of bias.
This review of the distribution of histological subtypes, treatment and overall survival (OS) rates of head and neck sacomas included 8 studies from 6 countries. Meta-analysis (5 studies) found the 5-year OS = 74%(95%CI; 63 to 84%)