Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the knowledge level of dentists about oral cancer (OC) in Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brazil. Material and Methods: It was an observational, transversal, descriptive and analytical study. It was applied 200 structured forms. The sample was chosen for convenience. Statistical associations were performed using the Chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests (P<0.05). Results: Of the 200 interviewed dentists, 66% (n=132) were women, the prevalent age group was 21-40 years (49.5%), 47% work at the private sector and 39% concluded their graduation 20 years ago. Oral squamous cell carcinoma was cited as the most common histopathologic type of OC (65.5%), and the most common anatomical site of OC was tongue (53.4%). The main risk factors cited for the developing of OC were licit and/or illicit drugs (99%), heredity (75.9%), dental problems (74.9%) and sun exposure (74.4%). There was a significant statistically association between the variables tobacco and/or alcohol use and gender of the dentists (P=0.001), between the knowledge level about OC and its histopathologic type and the more affected anatomical site (p=0.012 and p=0.034, respectively). Conclusion: The level of knowledge of dentists about OC is still insufficient for the performance of early diagnosis. Therefore, further discussions about this theme in dentistry schools should be conducted in order to train qualified professionals for this type of diagnosis.
Highlights
In recent years, the incidence of oral cancer has increased considerably, becoming a public health problem [1]
In order to verify the knowledge of the possible relationship between gender and tobacco use and/or alcohol habits of dentists interviewed, it was observed that there was a statistical association between variables (P=0.001) (Table 4), suggesting that even though the main risk factors for oral cancer were known, most male respondents cited alcohol consumption (49.4%)
A research performed in Lavras, state of Minas Gerais, aimed to evaluate the knowledge of dentists about oral cancer and observed that in relation to risk factors for this disease, tobacco and alcohol use were the most cited (83.8%) by dentists, following by sun exposure (79.7%) [16], which results are similar to those found in our study
Summary
The incidence of oral cancer has increased considerably, becoming a public health problem [1]. The increasing incidence of malignant oral lesions in tobacco nonusers and younger patients was observed [1,12,13,14]. This would indicate that other factors, such as genetic susceptibility, unprotected chronic exposure to ultraviolet radiation, diet and viral infection by HPV can have a synergistic relationship with the development of oral malignancies. The diagnosis of oral cancer is often performed late, and about 75 percent of cases are detected in advanced stages of the disease [3,19], causing a lower survival of 5-years in at least 50% of these patients [19]. The aim this paper was to evaluate the level of knowledge of dentists from Campina Grande / state of Paraiba, about oral cancer
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