Accuracy of brush biopsy method in oral malignancy detection

Introduction: Despite the numerous innovations in the treatment of malignant diseases in the last 50 years, only 50% of cases achieve a five-year survival. The low survival rate of patients with oral cancer can be attributed to the advanced stage of the disease at the time of diagnosis, as more than 60% of patients come to a medical examination at a more advanced clinical stage of the disease. In absence of subtler studies performed in our country, we set out the aim of this study - to determine the accuracy, sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the cell exfoliative cytology test (brush biopsy) in detecting potentially malignant lesions (PML) and patients with previous oral malignant disease (POMD) compared to the gold standard surgical biopsy. Material and methods: 60 patients divided into two study groups were examined with brush biopsy and consequently with surgical biopsy after it, selected under certain inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: SE of brush biopsy in the first group of examinees is maximal 100%, as well as the same value in the second one. SP presented 66.67% in the first and 0% in the second group, while the accuracy ranged from 93.33% to 100%. Conclusion: The accuracy of the methods obtained in our study, sets the thesis that brush biopsy as screening method is enough valuable and may be accompanied by any other less invasive and easy to perform method applicable in the everyday clinical practice. Key words: oral examination, brush biopsy, potentially malignant lesions, oral cancer