Evaluation of the Role of Toluidine Blue Paint as an Adjunctive Method to Biopsy in Suspicious Oral Lesion: A Hospital Based Study

Early detection is a major step in the success of cancer therapy. Histopathology report is considered as the gold standard in the formulation of management protocol of any malignancy worldwide. But unfortunately, there is a delay in the detection of oral cancer very often due to inconclusive histopathology reports. The main reason behind it is obtaining a biopsy specimen from the non-representative area of the lesion. A hospital-based evaluation of the role of Toluidine Blue dye, used as an adjunctive method prior to biopsy was conducted in a tertiary care hospital on 200 patients presenting with oral lesions persistent for more than 3 weeks. The participants were divided into two equal groups by alternate sampling. In one group biopsy was taken by clinical judgment and in others, Toluidine Blue was used prior to obtaining a biopsy to decide the area to be biopsied. Data was collected using a predesigned proforma and was analyzed with the help of SPSS version 20. Results in two groups were compared with respect to sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, false positive and false negative percentages. The Sensitivity, Specificity, Positive Predictive Value and Negative Predictive Value of wedge biopsy without staining were 73.68, 58.14, 70.00, and 62.50% respectively. These values were 95.08, 82.05, 89.23, and 91.43% respectively when Toluidine Blue staining was done as an adjunctive before the biopsy procedure. These results indicate the promising role of Toluidine blue staining before the biopsy to diagnose oral malignancy more efficiently than obtaining biopsy specimens on clinical assessment only and in avoiding the delay in initiating the treatment in case of oral malignant lesions.