ORAL PATHOLOGY- CARCINOMA CUNICULATUM

This slow growing variant of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) has features of both squamous and verrucous varaiants of SCC. A common form in the skin but rarely seen in the oral mucosa. Histopathologically displays the " Rabbit Burrow"  branching keratin filled crypts, that give it the name cuniculatus derived from cuniculus(small tunnel or burrow).

Mandana Donoghue [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons

Revisiting Oral Cancer Screening

Cancer screening is a familiar concept to most of us yet like most things in medicine, it is good to revisit the topic for a concept check periodically.

Screening to me was the examination of apparently healthy individuals to identify those who had the disease.  However, after reading a paper titled  Screening for oral cancer - a perspective from the Global oral cancer forum  Speight, P. M., Epstein, J., Kujan, O., Lingen, M. W., Nagao, T., Ranganathan, K., & Vargas, P. (2017). I realized I was missing an important part of the concept and that is the need for the process to be conducted at regular predefined intervals and on the same population. Therefore, cross-sectional studies cannot claim to be about cancer screening.

In addition, on the current stand on oral cancer screening the paper highlights that the best method right now is the opportunistic screening of high-risk individuals. Although this presents its own problems since there is no guarantee the high- risk, individuals will visit the same dentists at required intervals?

The paper provides a detailed review of the subject and lists priority areas for further research

                                                                 

BML0309 at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

HEAD AND NECK CUTANEOUS SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA- MEDSCAPE

A recent review by authors Marcus Monroe, MD; Chief Editor: Arlen D Meyers, MD, MBA on the Head & Neck cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas is a very interesting presentation of the topic that is detailed and up-to-date.
The article includes:

• Mucosal carcinomas
• History  of the carcinomas with the oldest case recorded
• Recent modification of TNM which takes into account high risk features and diameter of the lesion
• Pathogenesis ( which sadly has not focused much on the intraoral carcinomas)
• Details of diagnosis work up ( laboratory and imaging)
• Histopathology of variants
• Treatment considerations

This is an all in all great reading for those interested in Squamous cell carcinomas of Head & Neck.

To read the article go to:
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1965430-overview