Background: Despite much research, there is a lack of a definite protocol or method for documenting oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) site presentation. In this study we propose a new potential oral mapping (OM) method and evaluated its use in recording OSMF affected mucosal sites.
Methods: 50 OSMF patients were evaluated by 15 primary care dental practitioners using both, a conventional subjective recording method and a new OM method, to document the degree of involvement of affected oral mucosa with a crossover study design. Mann-Whitney test (Non-parametric test) was used to make comparison between groups to determine any significant differences between the two identification methods. Wilcoxon tests were used to evaluate any significant differences in the difficulty in identification of two methods.
Results: There was a low agreement between the two methods used to detect OSMF in affected mucosal surfaces (p-value <0.0001). More lesions were identified using the proposed OM method and less discrepancy was found among dental practitioners. A difference in difficulty of OSMF documentation was found (Wilcoxon z = 3.615, p-value <0.001), with the proposed OM method found to be easier.
Conclusion: The proposed OM method appears to be useful for documentation, can easily be adapted in clinical practice and effectively administered in clinical research. Additionally, it could be a useful tool to helping to maintain an OSMF database.