title: Assessment of oral mucosa in normal, precancer and cancer using chemiluminescent illumination, toluidine blue supravital staining and oral exfoliative cytology.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Carcinoma in an early stage of development is hard to detect clinically because the lesion may not be palpable and color of the lesional tissue is not necessarily different from the color of the surrounding mucosa. In order to improve the efficacy of the diagnosis, techniques are being developed to complement clinical examination and to facilitate the identification of initial carcinomas.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To find out the efficacy of chemiluminescent illumination (ViziLite™) for the diagnosis in precancer and cancer patients and compare this result to toluidine blue staining and oral exfoliative cytology.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was done in 3 groups. Each group consists of 10 cases. Group I consists of normal appearing mucosa. Group II and III consist of clinically diagnosed pre-cancer and clinically suggestive of cancer respectively. Chemiluminescent illumination, toluidine blue supravital staining, oral exfoliative cytology and biopsy were performed in all cases.
  
  
  METHODS
  SPSS version 10.05 was used to calculate positive and negative predictive values.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In Group I, all 10 patients showed negative result to ViziLite™. 8 patients showed positivity and 2 patients showed negativity to ViziLite™ test in Group II. 9 patients were positive and one patient was negative for ViziLite™.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Chemiluminescent illumination test was sensitive for precancerous and cancerous lesions, which presented as keratotic lesions and red-white lesions. It showed negative result to erosive lesions. Toluidine blue staining test was reliable in precancerous and cancerous lesions, which present as erosive and red-white lesions. It showed negative result to keratotic lesions. Oral exfoliative cytology has diagnostic value in cancer patients than in precancer patients. These Results indicate that chemiluminescent illumination test is relatively reliable and accurate than toluidine blue staining test and useful chair side diagnostic test.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, K.S.R Institute of Dental Science and Research, Tiruchengode, India.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rajmohan
authors.forename: Umadevi Krishnamohan
authors.initials: UK
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Joshua
authors.forename: Saraswathy Thillai
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Rajasekaran
authors.forename: Ranganathan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kannan