Oral cancer: risk factors, prevention and diagnostic.

Although oral cancer is rare and attracts little attention, it ranks 12th among all cancers and constitutes the most life threatening of all dental conditions. The aetiology of oral cancer is multi-factorial and like other types of cancer, the key to decreasing the suffering of patients and increasing their survival rate is early detection. The global increase in frequency and mortality of oral cancer has intensified current research efforts in the field of prevention and early detection of this disease. Therefore, scientists have been searching for alternative approaches to biopsy. A number of molecular-based diagnostic markers have been used to detect the presence of oral cancer with varying degrees of sensitivity and specificity. In this paper, incidence, mortality, risk factors, prevention, and diagnostic of oral cancer have been reviewed.