Diagnosis and management of potentially malignant oral disorders

The optimum management strategy for potentially malignant disorders remains a constant challenge as our present knowledge is still short of being conclusive. In spite of its shortcomings as an accurate predictive marker, the assessment of the severity of epithelial dysplasia continues to be useful in risk assessment. It is important to use a combination of epidemiological, clinical and histopathological input when deciding on the most appropriate management for an individual patient. Advanced research exploring molecular markers for diagnosis and risk predictions appear to be promising. However, these tests have not evolved to a stage that they could be used for routine diagnostics at the clinical setting.