A simple risk estimates study for oral cavity cancer: practical approach in Indian context

A study was conducted on 131 cases of oral cavity cancer (OCC), 145 cases of oral leucoplakia and 704 subjects without any oral lesions to investigate risk factors associated with the development of carcinoma of oral cavity in a hospital based cancer registry. Personal interviews, as well as physical examinations of the subjects enabled evaluation of a variety of potential risk factors. Potential risk factors like tobacco chewing, tobacco smoking, snuff dipping, alcohol consumption, bad oral and dental hygiene and age were given each certain numerical values. Each subject was first given a scoring and then analysed and correlated with the presenting lesions, when present. The study revealed that tobacco chewing and bad oral and dental hygiene contributed mainly to higher scoring. Among the subjects in high risk group (scoring more than 400) 63% had OCC, 21% had oral leucoplakia and 16% had no clinical oral lesions. Among the medium risk group (scoring between 100 and 400) 6% had OCC, 21% had leucoplakia and 73% had no oral lesions. In low risk group (scoring below 100) 8% had leucoplakia and 92% had no clinical oral lesions. Using the scoring system, it is suggested that the high risk group for OCC could be identified from general population and cancer detection tests could be specially directed towards this target group to detect maximum number of cases with minimum possible resources.