Patient delay in reporting oral cancer is poorly understood

Studies were sourced using databases as follows: Allied and Complementary Medicine, CANCERLIT, CINAHL, Embase, Medline, and PSYCHINFO. Researchers known to be involved in this area of study were contacted and bibliographic references were manually searched.

Studies were only included if they were published in the English language; were restricted to participants who had malignancies of the oral cavity; at least 90% of these patients had a histological diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma; and if they reported data allowing statistical analysis of the duration of patient delay in reporting their cancer.

Details of the data extraction process are not given and a qualitative synthesis is presented because of the small number of studies with good methodology and the variability in the factors examined.

Of the 148 papers identified as relevant, only eight studies met the inclusion criteria for the review. In these studies, most clinical/tumour factors, socio-demographic variables, and patient health-related behaviours did not influence the duration of patient delay. Healthcare factors and psychosocial factors may play a role but the research in this area is sparse, atheoretical and of poor quality.

Patient delay in reporting oral cancer is a problem and yet, at present, the reasons for such delays are poorly understood and under-researched. Systematic, high-quality and theory-driven research in this area is urgently required.