Current advances in noninvasive methods for the diagnosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma: a review

Abstract

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), one of the most common types of cancers worldwide, is diagnosed mainly through tissue biopsy. However, owing to the tumor heterogeneity and other drawbacks, such as the invasiveness of the biopsy procedure and high cost and limited usefulness of longitudinal surveillance, there has been a focus on adopting more rapid, economical, and noninvasive screening methods. Examples of these include liquid biopsy, optical detection systems, oral brush cytology, microfluidic detection, and artificial intelligence auxiliary diagnosis, which have their own strengths and weaknesses. Extensive research is being performed on various liquid biopsy biomarkers, including novel microbiome components, noncoding RNAs, extracellular vesicles, and circulating tumor DNA. The majority of these elements have demonstrated encouraging clinical outcomes in early OSCC detection. This review summarizes the screening methods for OSCC with a focus on providing new guiding strategies for the diagnosis of the disease.

Salivary biomarkers for early detection of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and head/neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC): A systematic review and network meta-analysis

“…The gold standard for the diagnosis of OSCC is a biopsy of the suspicious lesion but it is not always feasible for screening purposes for early oral cancer [38] , [39] , [40] . The discriminatory power of salivary biomarkers open up new avenues in oral cancer diagnosis.…”

Mechanisms and Potential Clinical Implications of Oral Microbiome in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

“…made an exhaustive summary of potential oral microbiome-based biomarkers for OSCC [82]. It is possible to distinguish cancerous lesions from normal tissues and perform tumor staging by noninvasively detecting microbes [83].…”

Diagnóstico de câncer oral através de biomarcadores, uma proposta não invasiva

“…A biópsia é um procedimento frequentemente utilizado, mas além de invasiva, é uma técnica de alto custo e utilidade limitada, refletindo em casos de neoplasias detectados tardiamente, resultando em metástase e consequentemente elevando a taxa de mortalidade (Ali et al, 2021;Madhura et al, 2020) Desta forma, percebe-se a necessidade de técnicas mais específicas e sensíveis que permitam o diagnóstico precoce, principalmente de técnicas minimamente invasivas como os métodos de biópsia líquida, sistema óptico, citologia da cavidade oral, método microfluídico e inteligência artificial. Atualmente, em meio de constantes pesquisas em biomarcadores de biópsia líquida, RNAs não codificantes e DNA tumoral circulante exibem um grande potencial na detecção deste câncer (Amenábar;Da Silva;Punyadeera, 2020;Wang et al, 2023).…”