The Journal
High risk individuals ( smokers and drinkers ) should have their mouths systematically examined , and those with doubtful lesions must be immediately referred to a specialized reference centre so that the proper diagnostic
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procedures can be performed . The oral health status of this medically compromised population is being published earlier but the sample size reported by these authors are little and consequently a need was felt by authors to verify the statistics on a large scale in this South Asian country with high prevalence of tobacco consumption . The ethical clearance was obtained from the ethical committee of Surendera Dental College and Research Institute before commencing the study . An informed consent was signed by the patients who agreed to participate in the study . The selection of the patients for the current study was done by doctors in charge of the routine OPD , who had been briefed about the research protocol . The dental clinical examination was conducted by a single calibrated examiner for whom kappa statistics was determined 88 % two days prior to study . Data was collected through face-to-face interviews using a standardized questionnaire applied to all cases . The questionnaire included sociodemographic variables such as smoking , alcohol consumption , family history of cancer , infectious diseases , and diet . The questionnaire was piloted on a group of twenty cases , and few adjustments were made before its application . WHO type III examination was carried out with the help of plane mouth mirror and CPITN ( WHO ) clinical probe . Out of 280 patients recruited , 242 were considered eligible according to the inclusion criteria i . e . histopathological confirmation , patients programmed for chemotherapy and radiotherapy and mouth opening of at least 25mm . Exclusion criteria were patients who had undergone previous treatment for HNC and oral cancer , HNC and oral cancer of unknown region , patients who had tumour at primary sites other than those established in the study and edentulous patients .
Table 1 : Zone wise distribution of Rajasthan State
10 3 15 Vol . 12 No . 23 May-August Sept-Dec 2016