Abstract
The present review is a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the overall prevalence of Candida, and its species specificity in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched using the keywords ‘Candida and oral squamous cell carcinoma’. Only case-control observational studies in the English language evaluating the prevalence and species specificity of Candida in OSCC were included. 297 articles were identified (PubMed-106, Scopus-148, Web of Science-43) using the keywords. After screening the titles and abstracts, 206 articles were removed as they were duplicates (118) or irrelevant to the topic (88). Full text of the remaining 91 articles was assessed using the inclusion criteria, based on which only seven articles were included in the systematic review. For the quantitative analysis, the odds ratio and confidence interval were assessed and a forest plot was generated. Based on the meta-analysis, there is an association between the total Candida, Candida albicans (CA) and OSCC, while the association with non-Candida albicans (NCA) is relatively weak. The number of studies included in the meta-analysis was relatively low (four to five). Further, at least one of the studies included in the meta-analysis for the association of CA., NCA and total Candida with OSCC had a Newcastle–Ottawa score below 7. Thus, although the results showed an association, the quality and quantity of the evidence may not be sufficient for conclusive inference.
Highlights
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a multifactorial disease, with tobacco and alcohol being the most common independent risk factors [1,2,3,4,5]
If a significant association is noted in OSCC, the microbe in question can be assessed for the presence of carcinogenic properties
Research on the prevalence and species specificity of Candida, including Candida albicans (CA), has been extended to a wide range of disease entities, especially with immunodeficiency states such as HIV/AIDS, and transplant patients wherein the opportunistic nature of Candida have a higher risk of establishing an infection [52,53,54,55]
Summary
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a multifactorial disease, with tobacco and alcohol being the most common independent risk factors [1,2,3,4,5] Apart from these known risk factors, several factors (microbiome; lifestyle factors including obesity, diet, and occupation; environmental factors like air pollution, heavy metal exposure, and genetic susceptibility) have been implicated in the development of OSCC [6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29], their evidence of association is limited.
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