Oral cancer is one of the most common malignant neoplasms in the world and is a major global health problem. In recent years, the incidence of oral and oropharyngeal cancer has been increasing, particularly in the young population. However, the overall 5-year survival rate of 55% has not improved significantly. The time of diagnosis and the stage of the tumour have a significant impact on patient survival. Early diagnosis and detection of both oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) and oral malignant neoplasms is crucial for the management of these lesions and the patient’s prognosis. It is important to develop reliable prognostic markers and to reduce the variability in the grading of epithelial dysplasia as a predictor of malignant transformation in OPMDs. The role of chronic inflammation in oral carcinogenesis should be analysed. Moreover, new therapeutic approaches (chemoprevention for OPMDs, immunotherapy with targeted therapies) should be considered.

Challenges for OPMDs and oral cancer could focus on:

- Early diagnosis and detection

- Predictive and prognostic markers

- Screening programmes for high-risk populations

- Epidemiology, aetiology, risk factors with special attention to oral HPV infection related to oropharyngeal carcinoma.

- New therapeutic approaches

Different types of articles (research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, etc.) can be considered, although case reports are not applicable.

The broad topics to be addressed could be:

- Early diagnosis and detection (beta-defensins).

- Predictive and prognostic markers (oral epithelial dysplasia grading, epithelial-mesenchymal transition).

- Screening programmes for high-risk populations.

- Epidemiology (increased incidence in young adults and women), aetiology and pathogenesis (role of chronic inflammation), new risk factors (oral HPV infection).

- New therapeutic approaches (immunotherapy).

Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.

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Frontiers in Oncology

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