Background
OPMDs, oral cancer
PREMALIGNANT, OPMDS, ORAL CANCERS, ORAL CANCER, PATHOLOGY
To date, oral cancer represents the sixth most widespread oncological pathology in the world, with an incidence of approximately 300,000 new cases diagnosed every year [Early diagnosis of oral cancer is critical to improve the survival rate of patients. The current strategies for screening of patients for oral premalignant and malignant lesions unfortunately miss a significant number of involved patients [To date, the gold standard in the diagnosis of OPMDs is performed by clinical examination and histopathological evaluation, carried out by optical microscope observation of samples taken from patients through surgical biopsy, after staining with hematoxylin–eosin [The importance of epithelial thickness as a possible predictor of architectural changes was highlighted. A few of study provide that OCT is able to produce measurements that can compete with histopathological standards in a reproducible way, and also indicate how the epithelial thickness, combined with architectural changes, may lead to early differentiation of areas involved or free from cancer/dysplasia [An ex vivo study based on an SS-OCT system that used optical attenuation model to identify and classify three types of tissues (normal mucosa, precancerous tissues, and oral cancer), showed how an appropriate algorithm can help to improve screening and the diagnosis of oral cancers [As a non-invasive and real-time in vivo imaging technique, OCT can express identical information sufficient for oral cancer screening, but it has not been explored effectively for automatic diagnosis of oral cancer. However, to date the literature shows sufficient evidence regarding the peculiarities and similarities with traditional histopathology: in this way it is possible not always to resort to direct comparison with histological preparations and to avoid, if possible, surgical intervention on the patient [The main purpose of this case series study is to evaluate in vivo discriminatory potential of OCT in a series of patients affected by OPMDs, before traditional biopsy, in order to support a preliminary evaluation by comparation with the site-specific healthy tissue.