Oral Health and Dental Management

A review on the recent advances in diagnosis and management of oral cancer and assessment of chemoresponse assays in head and neck cancer patients

2^nd International Conference and Exhibition on Dental & Oral Health

April 21-23, 2014 Crown Plaza Dubai, UAE

Basem Jamal

Accepted Abstracts: Oral Health Dent Manag

Abstract:

Oral cancer is an insidious disease that affects over 274, 000 new patients annually. Oral cancer is the 12th most common cancer worldwide but the 3rd most common in Saudi Arabia. Despite advances in diagnostic modalities and therapies, the 5-year survival for oral cancer is about 50%. The 5-year survival is reported to be lower (30-35%) for patients with less access to health care and lower income in the US and that population constitutes the majority of patients with head and neck cancer in general in Saudi Arabia. Adequate evaluation and staging are paramount in providing patients with the best chance for cure and survival. Oral cancer usually originates from asymptomatic premalignant lesions. This presentation will provide an overview and update on the clinical and laboratory diagnosis of oral precancerous and cancerous lesions to enable early diagnosis and review current management guidelines. Also, recent advances in molecular techniques and studies that might enable earlier diagnosis and better management of cancer patients will be presented. Also in this talk the author will present a study assessing the effectiveness of a phenotypic chemoresponse assay in predicting response to chemotherapy in a retrospective series of head and neck cancer patients whose tumor specimens had been tested with ChemoFx assay.