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    Digital Health Technologies for the Early Detection of Oral Cancer

    Submission Deadline: August 31, 2025

    Guest Editor

    Saman Warnakulasuriya E-Mail

    Emeritus Professor in Oral Medicine, King's College, London, UK.

    Research Keywords: Oral cancer, potentially malignant disorders, early diagnosis, screening, adjunctive aids, cancer detection


    About the Special Issue

    The current literature vividly demonstrates the difficulties in distinguishing between benign, potentially malignant disorders, and early oral cancer, leading to delays in diagnosis of these oral pathologies. Most oral medicine and cancer centres report that oral cancer patients present at very late stages of the disease, with regional spread of this malignancy to the neck and beyond. Recent Cochrane reviews highlight the limitations of traditional diagnostic methods, namelyclinical oral examination andwidely available commercial adjunctive aids. 

    In this special issue, we explore how digital health technologies could offer a solution to the challenges encountered in the early diagnosis of oral cancer and oral potentially malignant disorders and provide an Introduction to digital health technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their applications in healthcare, including how these new technologies could assist us in early clinical diagnosis of oral cancer. Digital health devices and AI techniques and tools in cancer diagnosis are currently being developed as research tools for screening oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer in field studies, and we provide case studies on AI in cancer diagnosis. In some chapters, diagnostic studies assessing the ability of digital health technologies to appropriately perform screening and comparing their performance with results from human clinicians will be presented and discussed. Data-driven approaches for oral cancer diagnosis are currently being explored, and the chapter authors of this special issue are all keen to share their experiences while advancing these techniques to aid in the early detection of oral cancer and to assist in precision medicine.

    Keywords: Oral cancer, potentially malignant disorders, early diagnosis, cancer detection, tele medicine, tele dentistry, primary care

    Call for Papers

    Published Articles

    Open Access
    Short Communication
    mHealth to enhance oral cancer awareness in older adults in Chile: a preliminary report
    This study aims to assess a new mobile application (app)’s efficacy in raising oral cancer awareness among older adults through educational videos and serious games. The app, named TEGO® (Tele-pl [...] Read more.
    Constanza B. Morales-Gómez ... Víctor Beltrán
    Published: January 23, 2025 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2025;3:101139
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2025.101139
    View:1300
    Download:110
    Times Cited: 0
    Open Access
    Perspective
    Artificial intelligence driven real-time digital oral microscopy for early detection of oral cancer and potentially malignant disorders
    Confocal laser endomicroscopy (CLE) enables real-time diagnosis of oral cancer and potentially malignant disorders by in vivo microscopic tissue examination. One impediment to the widespread clinica [...] Read more.
    Simon A. Fox, Camile S. Farah
    Published: January 22, 2025 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2025;3:101138
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2025.101138
    View:1734
    Download:129
    Times Cited: 0
    Open Access
    Original Article
    Integrative strategies combining telemedicine and opportunistic screening to reduce diagnostic delays in oral cancer: a 4-year-retrospective study
    Aim: The primary aim was to develop and test a telemedicine program for oral cancer screening by dentists in primary care. The secondary aim was to analyze the sensitivity of the provisional diag [...] Read more.
    Gerardo Gilligan ... Eduardo Piemonte
    Published: January 10, 2025 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2025;3:101136
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2025.101136
    View:1367
    Download:111
    Times Cited: 0
    Open Access
    Original Article
    Assessing the accuracy and readability of ChatGPT-4 and Gemini in answering oral cancer queries—an exploratory study
    Aim: This study aims to evaluate the accuracy and readability of responses generated by two large language models (LLMs) (ChatGPT-4 and Gemini) to frequently asked questions by lay persons (the g [...] Read more.
    Márcio Diniz-Freitas ... Pedro Diz-Dios
    Published: November 19, 2024 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2024;2:334–345
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2024.00032
    View:2724
    Download:173
    Open Access
    Review
    Teledentistry in the detection of oral potentially malignant disorders and oral cancer in the Latin American region: a review of literature with current possibilities
    Teledentistry has emerged as a promising tool in bridging the gap in healthcare accessibility, particularly in regions like Latin America region, where resources for oral healthcare are often limite [...] Read more.
    Caique Mariano Pedroso ... Alan Roger Santos-Silva
    Published: October 22, 2024 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2024;2:291–301
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2024.00029
    View:2911
    Download:178
    Times Cited: 0
    Open Access
    Perspective
    Development of a telemedicine network for early oral cancer diagnosis: the Argentine Patagonia experience—a perspective through a pilot study
    Geographic areas like Argentine Patagonia face significant barriers in the fight against oral cancer due to great distances, extreme weather conditions, and a shortage of specialists. These factors  [...] Read more.
    Romina Andrian ... Gerardo Gilligan
    Published: October 10, 2024 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2024;2:279–290
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2024.00028
    View:2605
    Download:158
    Open Access
    Perspective
    mHealth interventions to improve public knowledge of HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer in the UK
    In the United Kingdom (UK), the current prevalence rates of oropharyngeal cancer linked to human papillomavirus (HPV) are 6.29% and 2.04% in men and women, respectively. Over the years, the burden o [...] Read more.
    Kehinde Kazeem Kanmodi ... Jacob Njideka Nwafor
    Published: September 30, 2024 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2024;2:271–278
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2024.00027
    View:2503
    Download:158
    Open Access
    Perspective
    How to improve photographs with smartphones for oral telemedicine
    Photographic images are an essential tool in oral medicine practice, even though their value is conditioned by their quality. Digital photography using smartphones (SPhs) has had many advances, nowa [...] Read more.
    Eduardo D. Piemonte ... Jerónimo P. Lazos
    Published: September 13, 2024 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2024;2:249–258
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2024.00025
    View:2522
    Download:168
    Times Cited: 0
    Open Access
    Perspective
    Artificial intelligence facilitates clinical management of epithelial dysplasia in multiple organs
    Epithelial dysplasia is a condition characterized by a spectrum of architectural and cytological alterations to the epithelium, resulting from the accumulation of genetic alterations. It is associat [...] Read more.
    Xin-Jia Cai
    Published: July 08, 2024 Explor Digit Health Technol. 2024;2:183–187
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.37349/edht.2024.00020
    View:3346
    Download:211