Advances in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Oral Cancer

Dear Colleagues,

Despite continuous research advances, most patients are still diagnosed with advanced-stage disease, associated with a worse prognosis and poorer quality of life. Typically, oral cancer patients are male, aged 60 years and older and with a long history of smoking and alcohol consumption. However, an increasing incidence of oral cancer has been also observed in patients without traditional risk factors. It is therefore necessary to better understand the mechanisms involved in oral carcinogenesis to develop novel strategies that improve early detection and survival for these patients.

In the era of ‘precision medicine’, research efforts are focused on the discovery of noninvasive methods for diagnosis and molecular tumor characterization. The field of liquid biopsy has emerged as a potential strategy for cancer management and the development of targeted therapies, mainly in lung, breast, and colorectal cancers. However, the clinical implementation of liquid biopsy in oral cancer is still in its infancy. Therefore, it is urgent to identify non-invasive oral cancer biomarkers and develop the potential for early cancer detection, molecular profiling, minimal residual disease detection, and treatment response monitoring.

Moreover, the application of radiomics and digital pathology can contribute more information regarding tumor heterogeneity, essential for improving personalized medicine. More advances in clinical investigations focused on the application of these approaches in oral cancer management are needed.

This Special Issue launches an invitation for researchers and clinicians to share their recent investigations and results in the oral cancer field. Original articles and review articles focused on the topics of liquid biopsy, biomarkers, diagnosis, prognosis, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, radiomics, digital pathology, and personalized medicine in oral cancer are within the scope of this Special Issue and are welcomed for submission.

Prof. Dr. María Mercedes Suárez Cunqueiro
Dr. Óscar Rapado-González
Guest Editors

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• oral cancer
• human papillomavirus
• biomarkers
• liquid biopsy
• radiomics
• targeted therapy
• immunotherapy
• digital pathology
• sentinel node biopsy