Incidence of Oral Cancers has increased considerably in the past few decades irrespective of gender or Age as compared to the 1980’s. The exact reasons for this kind of increase is not clear and a team of researchers conducted a case-control study using SEER-Medicare dataset (1992-2013) which included 2534 oral tongue cancers, 6832 oral cancers, 9373 Oropharyngeal cancers and 200,000 controls. In this study it was found that patients with pre existing inflammatory tongue conditions had increased risk of Tongue cancer which preceded it by many years.
In the research the Medicare data in the United States was used to identify patients with pre existing inflammatory tongue conditions such as glossitis, benign migratory glossitis, median rhomboid glossitis, atrophic glossitis, glossodynia, atrophy and hypertrophy of tongue etc. Certain pre cancerous conditions such as Leukoplakia and Erythroplakia also were found to be linked to increased risk of Oral Cancer.
Glossitis followed by other specified conditions and unspecified conditions were found to be the major pre existing conditions which lead to Oral Cancer.
Patients with Inflammatory tongue conditions prevalence was found to be 6% as compared to just 0.6% Controls in Oral cancer patients.
These pre existing inflammatory tongue conditions were seen for more than 5 years preceding Tongue Cancer diagnosis in most patients.
In 2013, 1 in 11 oral tongue cancer patients were seen to be having prior inflammatory tongue conditions.
The Inflammatory conditions of the tongue have been seen to increase the incidence of Oral Tongue cancer in patients aged 65 or above many fold (6 to 15 fold). Seeing such high prevalence of Tongue cancer in patients having inflammatory conditions such as Glossitis, hypertrohpy, etc. Clinicians should be keeping an Eye out on patients having these conditions for more than 5 years and refer them to specialists for Oral cancer screening. The specialist who usually can help in cancer surveillance are Oral Medicine or Oral Surgery specialists.
Reference – Inflammatory Tongue Conditions and Risk of Oral Tongue Cancer Among the US Elderly Individual
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