Evaluation of the Role of Toluidine Blue Paint as an Adjunctive Method to Biopsy in Suspicious Oral Lesion: A Hospital Based Study.

Abstract

Early detectionisamajorstep in thesuccessof cancer therapy.Histopathology report is considered as the gold standard in theformulationof management protocol of anymalignancyworldwide. Butunfortunately, there is adelayin thedetectionof oral cancer very often due to inconclusive histopathology reports.Themainreason behind it isobtaininga biopsy specimen from the non-representativearea of thelesion.A hospital-basedevaluationof theroleofToluidine Blue dye, used as an adjunctive methodprior tobiopsywasconductedin a tertiary carehospitalon 200patientspresentingwith oral lesions persistent for more than 3weeks. Theparticipantsweredividedinto two equal groups by alternate sampling.In onegroupbiopsywastakenby clinical judgment and inothers,Toluidine Bluewas usedprior toobtainingabiopsytodecidetheareato bebiopsied.Datawascollectedusinga predesigned proforma and wasanalyzedwith thehelpofSPSSversion 20.Resultsin twogroupswerecomparedwithrespecttosensitivity,specificity,positiveandnegative predictive values,falsepositiveandfalsenegativepercentages. The Sensitivity, Specificity, PositivePredictiveValueand NegativePredictiveValueof wedge biopsy without staining were 73.68, 58.14, 70.00, and 62.50% respectively.Thesevalueswere 95.08, 82.05, 89.23, and 91.43% respectively when Toluidine Blue staining wasdoneas an adjunctive before thebiopsyprocedure.Theseresultsindicatethe promising role of Toluidine blue staining before thebiopsytodiagnoseoralmalignancymore efficiently than obtainingbiopsyspecimens on clinical assessment only and inavoidingthedelayininitiatingthetreatmentincaseoforalmalignant lesions.