Autofluorescence and Early Detection of Mucosal Lesions in Patients at Risk for Oral Cancer

Loss of autofluorescence as an early phenomenon associated with tissue degeneration seems to be promising for the diagnosis of oral cancer. The method seems to make visible early structural and biochemical alterations of the oral mucosa not always evident under direct inspection of the oral cavity. For this reason, the margins of the mucosal lesions usually appear wider compared with direct visualization. Actual extension of the potentially malignant lesions must be precisely perceived to avoid any underestimation of the tumor. In this study, 32 patients at risk for oral cancer underwent autofluorescence test. Of these patients, 12 (group A) experienced potentially malignant diseases. The other 20 patients (group B) were previously operated on for oral cancer. In addition, 13 patients showed loss of autofluorescence (8 patients from group A and 5 patients from group B). Among these 13 patients, 12 were affected with lesions of relevance (in group A, 6 had squamocellular carcinoma and 2 had low-grade dysplasia; in group B, 2 patients had high-grade dysplasia, 2 had low-grade dysplasia, and 1 had an epithelial hypertrophy with inflammatory cells). Preliminary results seem to indicate that autofluorescence is a high-performing test for the individuation of oral cancer in populations at risk (sensibility up to 100% and specificity up to 93% in this study).

[1]  M. Gorsky,et al.  Denture wearing and oral cancer. , 1984, The Journal of prosthetic dentistry.

[2]  D. Winn,et al.  Smoking and drinking in relation to oral and pharyngeal cancer. , 1988, Cancer research.

[3]  S. Cretin,et al.  Use of meta-analysis to evaluate tolonium chloride in oral cancer screening. , 1989, Oral surgery, oral medicine, and oral pathology.

[4]  P. Boffetta,et al.  Role of tobacco and alcoholic beverages in the etiology of cancer of the oral cavity/oropharynx in Torino, Italy. , 1989, Cancer research.

[5]  C. la Vecchia,et al.  Smoking and drinking in relation to cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, and esophagus in northern Italy. , 1990, Cancer research.

[6]  E. Wynder,et al.  Oral cavity cancer in non-users of tobacco. , 1993, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

[7]  A E Profio,et al.  Detection of dysplasia and carcinoma in situ with a lung imaging fluorescence endoscope device. , 1993, The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery.

[8]  N Ramanujam,et al.  In vivo diagnosis of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia using 337-nm-excited laser-induced fluorescence. , 1994, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[9]  H Lumerman,et al.  Oral epithelial dysplasia and the development of invasive squamous cell carcinoma. , 1995, Oral surgery, oral medicine, oral pathology, oral radiology, and endodontics.

[10]  R. Richards-Kortum,et al.  Noninvasive diagnosis of oral neoplasia based on fluorescence spectroscopy and native tissue autofluorescence. , 1998, Archives of otolaryngology--head & neck surgery.

[11]  R R Alfano,et al.  In vivo native cellular fluorescence and histological characteristics of head and neck cancer. , 1998, Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

[12]  A. Jemal,et al.  Global cancer statistics , 2011, CA: a cancer journal for clinicians.

[13]  H Stepp,et al.  Autofluorescence imaging and spectroscopy of normal and malignant mucosa in patients with head and neck cancer , 1999, Lasers in surgery and medicine.

[14]  R. Richards-Kortum,et al.  Optimal Excitation Wavelengths for In Vivo Detection of Oral Neoplasia Using Fluorescence Spectroscopy¶ , 2000, Photochemistry and photobiology.

[15]  A. Venuti,et al.  Human papillomavirus in head and neck carcinomas: prevalence, physical status and relationship with clinical/pathological parameters. , 2000, Anticancer research.

[16]  Haishan Zeng,et al.  Autofluorescence properties of skin and applications in dermatology , 2000, Optics and Optoelectronic Inspection and Control.

[17]  M A Onofre,et al.  Reliability of toluidine blue application in the detection of oral epithelial dysplasia and in situ and invasive squamous cell carcinomas. , 2001, Oral surgery, oral medicine, oral pathology, oral radiology, and endodontics.

[18]  C. R. Leemans,et al.  Multiple head and neck tumors frequently originate from a single preneoplastic lesion. , 2002, The American journal of pathology.

[19]  Carlos Albornoz López del Castillo,et al.  The clinical diagnosis and the early detection of oral cancer , 2003 .

[20]  S. Shapshay,et al.  Spectroscopic detection and evaluation of morphologic and biochemical changes in early human oral carcinoma , 2003, Cancer.

[21]  Ekaterina S. Svistun,et al.  Vision enhancement system for detection of oral cavity neoplasia based on autofluorescence , 2004, Head & neck.

[22]  C Scully,et al.  An audit of the efficacy of the oral brush biopsy technique in a specialist Oral Medicine unit. , 2004, Oral oncology.

[23]  Michaell A. Huber,et al.  Acetic acid wash and chemiluminescent illumination as an adjunct to conventional oral soft tissue examination for the detection of dysplasia: a pilot study. , 2004, Quintessence international.

[24]  Nhu D Le,et al.  Toluidine blue staining identifies high-risk primary oral premalignant lesions with poor outcome. , 2005, Cancer research.

[25]  J. Ferlay,et al.  Global Cancer Statistics, 2002 , 2005, CA: a cancer journal for clinicians.

[26]  Calum MacAulay,et al.  Fluorescence Visualization Detection of Field Alterations in Tumor Margins of Oral Cancer Patients , 2006, Clinical Cancer Research.

[27]  J. Mcdowell An overview of epidemiology and common risk factors for oral squamous cell carcinoma. , 2006, Otolaryngologic clinics of North America.

[28]  David Sidransky,et al.  Fluorescence Visualization in Oral Neoplasia: Shedding Light on an Old Problem , 2006, Clinical Cancer Research.

[29]  Haishan Zeng,et al.  Simple device for the direct visualization of oral-cavity tissue fluorescence. , 2006, Journal of biomedical optics.

[30]  G. Lodi Hepatitis C virus and lichen planus , 2006, Evidence-Based Dentistry.

[31]  Rebecca Richards-Kortum,et al.  Low-cost, multimodal, portable screening system for early detection of oral cancer. , 2008, Journal of biomedical optics.

[32]  R. Ng,et al.  Genomic imbalances in precancerous tissues signal oral cancer risk , 2009, Molecular Cancer.

[33]  I. van der Waal,et al.  Potentially malignant disorders of the oral and oropharyngeal mucosa; terminology, classification and present concepts of management. , 2009, Oral oncology.

[34]  Isaäc van der Waal,et al.  Potentially malignant disorders of the oral and oropharyngeal mucosa; terminology, classification and present concepts of management , 2009 .

[35]  A. Jemal,et al.  Global Cancer Statistics , 2011 .