Qat and its health effects.

In Southern Arabia and Eastern Africa, qat chewing is a widely practised socio-cultural habit. It consists of placing the green-leaved plant into the mucobuccal fold and chewing it for several hours, with subsequent release of psychoactive agents. Qat chewing is often accompanied by smoking tobacco. The reported prevalence of qat chewing in Europe and North America is on the increase with global migration. Oral diseases reportedly associated with qat chewing include periodontitis, oral leukoplakia and oral cancer. However, precise data on the association of qat use with the development of oral cancer are sparse. The aim of this review is to 1) Educate health clinicians about qat usage and related oral/systemic health issues; and 2) Review the current literature regarding qat use and its association with oral disease but more specifically review its link with oral leukoplakia and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). To do this we searched the literature (PubMed, Science Direct and Scopus) to identify all relevant articles published over the last 20 years using a combination of terms 'qat', 'khat', 'kat', 'cathinone' and 'cathaedulis'.