AVENUES TO EARLY DETECTION OF ORAL PREMALIGNANT AND MALIGNANT LESIONS: A REVIEW OF THE CURRENT TECHNOLOGIES

In spite of the advances in the therapy for management of Oral Cancer the prognosis still remains poor. The survival of these patients is highly dependent on the early detection of these lesions and subsequent, prompt treatment. Scalpel biopsy though considered to be the gold standard for diagnosis is invasive and associated with high morbidity and as such is reserved for evaluating highly suspicious lesions. There is a need to devise tests which are non-invasive, highly specific and sensitive and cost effective too. Various diagnostic tests used nowadays for early detection of malignancy include brush biopsy, toluidine blue staining, Lab On a Chip, Saliva based Oral Cancer Diagnosis, Laser Capture Micro dissection, Spectral Cytopathology, A multispectral digital microscope (MDM), Optical coherence tomography, Oral Auto fluorescence. In this review an attempt has been made to examine the role of these tests and technologies and assess their role in early detection of malignancies.