This article is part of the supplement: 1st Scientific Meeting of the Head and Neck Optical Diagnostics Society .

Oral presentation

Role of histopathologic and phenotypic assessment in the development and validation of optical diagnostic devices for head and neck mucosal lesions

Adel K El-Naggar

Division of Pathology, UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Texas, USA

corresponding author email

from 1^st Scientific Meeting of the Head and Neck Optical Diagnostics Society
London, UK. 14 March 2009

Head & Neck Oncology 2009, 1(Suppl 1):O9doi:10.1186/1758-3284-1-S1-O9

Published:	28 July 2009

First paragraph (this article has no abstract)

Head and neck squamous carcinoma, including the oral cavity, is the sixth most common cancer worldwide with approximately 270,000 new oral cavity tumours per year. Unfortunately, the majority of these tumours present in late stage with the attended functional, psychological and economic costs on their victims. It's clearly evident that screening and early detection of the cancer and its early precursors have the potential to reduce the morbidity and mortality of this disease. In that context, current oral examination methods including incandescent light or toluidine blue, reflectance visualization and illumination with chemiluminescent light source, are largely subjective, dependent on the experience of the examiner and are considered in-effective tools in primary care settings.