Ability of dental students to identify potentially malignant diseases and oral cancers - a questionnaire based study

Potentially malignant disorder and oral cancer is a major health problem especially in developing countries, and a serious cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. It is believed that the etiology of oral cancer is multifactorial and that the process is a multiple, stepwise one. Most of the times oral cancer is preceded by a precancerous state where the patient presents clinical features depicting potentially malignant disorders. Thereby identification in these state would help in successful treatment and preventing it from developing into a precancerous state.Ensuring that future dentists are knowledgeable about oral cancer will improve the efficacy of prevention, screening and management of this lesion.