Surgical Interventions in Oral Submucous Fibrosis: A Systematic Analysis of the Literature

Oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) is a potentially malignant disorder of the oral cavity. The surgical management of this condition involves excision of the fibrotic bands and interpositional grafts to retain the increased oral opening. Various procedures and graft material have been utilised with differing success rates.

The present review aims to collate and analyze from world literature the different modalities utilized in the surgical management of OSMF. The reasons for the choice of a particular surgical procedure, the study protocol, the average follow-up period and the results were scrutinized.

The PRISMA protocol was followed for the systematic review. Search engines and medical databases like Ovid, Medline, Pubgate, Researchgate, PubMed, Google etc. were tapped for information related to the subject. The search words "OSMF", "surgical interventions in OSMF", "flaps and grafts in treatment of OSMF" were employed for retrieval of data. An analysis of the treatment modalities, the reason for the selection of a particular modality, the organization of the sample selection and the follow-up periods including the proclaimed success rates was done.

The review resulted in a total of 56 articles on the subject from the sources mentioned above. A total of 995 surgically treated cases were included in the analysis. Interestingly the review revealed very few controlled clinical trials, most being random trials on surgical procedures in small groups of patients with very short follow up periods. The choice of procedure seems to be determined entirely by the preference of the operator/s.

There exist no definite protocols for the adoption of a particular treatment mode in OSMF. Adequate documentation and follow up need to be established to statistically analyse the results and proclaimed successes of various treatment modalities.