Management of oral leukoplakia: a position paper of the Society of Oral Medicine, Chinese Stomatological Association

Abstract

The objective of this study was to develop the first edition of a Chinese evidence-based position paper on the management of oral leukoplakia (OLK). The consultant group for drafting the position paper consisted of 31 oral medicine specialists and 2 evidence-based medicine specialists. English studies (searched in PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library) and Chinese studies (searched in China National Knowledge Infrastructure and WanFang) published before January 2018 were used. The quality of the study was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation grid, and the strength of the recommendations was determined based on the results of 3 rounds of voting among the consultant group members using the Delphi method. Twenty-two evidence-based guidelines for clinical management and monitoring of OLK were established in this position paper. A clinical path diagram for oral health practitioners was constructed based on the recommendations. Current evidence suggests that management and monitoring of patients with OLK should be performed by experienced clinicians to control the lesion and for early detection of malignant transformation. However, all recommendations are based on evidence of low or extremely low quality and may require further modification as new evidence is produced.