Assessment of factors associated with early and late stage diagnosis of buccal mucosa carcinoma

Background/Objectives: Delayed reporting at advanced stage of oral cancer is a common problem in India. Hence, the purpose of study was to determine factors associated with early and delay diagnosis of buccal mucosa carcinoma. Materials and Methods: The questionnaire based cross-sectional study was conducted with 198 buccal mucosa carcinoma subjects. Sociodemographic, socioeconomic, clinical-histopathology characteristic, clinical symptoms and their habits were recorded. Results and discussion: In our study, 169(85.3%) had diagnosed with advanced stage, whereas 29(14.7%) diagnosed at early stage. Among all the factors, socioeconomic status, degree of differentiation and regional lymph nodes were found to be associated with stage of diagnosis, whereas sociodemographic, depth of tumor and tumor size were not associated (P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analyses exists independent associations with clinical and histopathological factors (P<0.05). Moderately differentiated (OR 13.32), poorly differentiated (OR 16.124) and presence of regional lymph node (OR 1.914) had risk of developing cancer in advanced stage than early stage of diagnosis. Hence, early diagnosis was best prevention of diseases. Conclusion: The study suggested that rising public awareness could reduce the burden of this disease and improves early diagnosis in India.