Assessment of Association between Poor Oral Hygiene and Oral Cancer

Introduction: Oral cancer's incidence rates of oral cancer are higher in developed countries than in developing countries; however, in countries of Southern Asia, oral cancer is the most common cancer affecting males and the third most common one affecting females, after breast and cervical cancers.Poor oral hygiene is believed to play a role as a risk factor for head and neck cancer.Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between poor oral hygiene and oral cancer.Methods: In this retrospective study, a total of 86000 case sheets were reviewed, in which 477 case sheets of patients with poor oral hygiene were found.To act as a control, we retrieved 477 case sheets for each of the patients with good and fair oral hygiene.Results: Among the 477 patients who had poor oral hygiene 32 patients were found to have oral cancer, for which the P-value was found to be statistically significant (<0.05).The majority of the patients with poor oral hygiene who had oral cancer were males (27 patients) and P-value was found to be statistically significant (<0.05).Among the 32 patients with oral cancer, 16 patients were in the age group of 36-55 years for which the P-value was found to be statistically significant (<0.05).Conclusion: Within the limits of the study, it is observed that there is a significant association between oral hygiene and oral cancer with males being the most affected gender and those in the age group of 36-55 years were found to be most affected.This shows the poor knowledge among patients about the maintenance of oral hygiene and the importance of regular dental check-up.