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Updated: May 17, 2026
Diagnosis of Neoplasia in Barrett’s Esophagus using Vital-dye Enhanced Fluorescence Imaging
Published on: May 11, 2014
The role of direct visual fluorescent examination (VELscope) in routine screening for potentially malignant oral
Kristin K McNamara1, Brent D Martin, Erik W Evans
1Oral & Maxillofacial Pathology, College of Dentistry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA. mcnamara.189@osu.edu
Objective:
Direct visual fluorescent examination (DVFE) is a proposed adjunct to conventional oral examination (COE). We evaluate the benefit of DVFE in screening for potentially malignant mucosal lesions in a general population of patients presenting for dental care.
Study Design:
A total of 130 patients were evaluated by COE followed by DVFE. Areas clinically suspicious by COE or with positive DVFE (visual fluorescence loss [VFL]) underwent surgical biopsy. Association between COE and DVFE was assessed and compared with histopathology.
Results:
A total of 42 subjects had one or more areas of VFL, yet histologic evidence of premalignancy/malignancy was only identified in a single individual. Further, one lesion negative by DVFE exhibited epithelial dysplasia. DVFE was statistically different from scalpel biopsy (P = .0001). No difference was found between COE and scalpel biopsy (P = 1.0).
Conclusions:
Results suggest that COE is more valid than DVFE at discriminating benign mucosal alterations from premalignancy and do not support use of DVFE as an oral cancer screening adjunct.
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