Frequency of Undetected Early Signs of Oral Cancer in Elderly Patients Reporting to Prosthodontics Department of Rawal Institute of Health Sciences Islamabad

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the frequency of early signs of oral malignancy in older patients

Methodology: From January 2025 to April 2025 in Rawal General and Dental college. A total of 80 participants above 40 years of age including both genders were included in the study. The responses of the participants were recorded in the questionnaire which consisted of three parts. Along with age, gender the first part of the questionnaire consisted of record of patient’s personal habits for recording of risk factors, second part included recording of ongoing symptoms, and third part consisted of physical examination. Categorization into no, mild, moderate and severe likelihood of oral cancer was done further. SPSS was used for statistical analysis.

Results: Most participants (42.5%) fell under the category of having a mild probability, while 21.25% showed moderate indicators indicating a higher risk for oral cancer and very few had severe (25%) and no (8.75%) probability. Likelihood of oral cancer based on the questionnaire responses of the participants whilst screening for early signs showed a significant association with participant’s age (p = 0.009) while no significant association with gender (p = 0.178) was observed.

Conclusion: Routine oral cancer screening in primary dental care is essential, as this study highlights the presence of mild to moderate risk indicators among older adults, even in the absence of overt clinical signs.