Non-Invasive in vivo Screening of Oral Malignancy Using Laser-Induced Fluorescence Based System

Abstract

About 4000 spectra from oral cavity sites have been recorded in vivo from 380 volunteers, under normal (n=133), potentially malignant (n=155), and malignant (n=92) conditions, by excitation with 325 nm CW He-Cd laser. The analyses of the spectra show that the overall spectra arise from about 7-8 bands from different molecular species. In healthy condition (from subjects with no abnormal oral conditions, including tobacco use), buccal mucosa, lip underside, and tongue bottom give spectra very similar to each other, while tongue top, tongue lateral, and palate give spectra different from these as well as from each other. Under potentially malignant and malignant conditions all sites give spectra which are noticeably different for different sites and under different conditions. It is therefore advisable to use separate reference data sets of normal, potentially malignant, or malignant conditions for different sites for optical diagnostic applications.

Optical Biopsy and Optical Pathology: Affordable Health Care Under Low-Resource Settings

“…The system was evaluated by in vivo examination of ~380 subjects (133 normal, 155 oral premalignancy, and 92 oral malignancy) and recording a total of about 4000 fluorescence spectra from different sites -buccal mucosa, tongue lateral, tongue tip, tongue top, tongue bottom, lip underside, and palate -under normal, premalignant, and malignant conditions [14]. The system in Fig.…”