Predicting Oral Cancer: Toluidine Blue

Study participant Gail Coe (left) is given a toluidine blue screening test by Dr. Michelle Williams of the B.C. Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Thursday.

The Candian Press has Painting mouth lesions with blue dye can predict risk of oral cancer: study.

A simple blue dye used by dentists to detect cancerous lesions in the mouth can also aid early diagnosis by identifying suspicious-looking patches at high risk of becoming malignant, a Canadian study has found.

Researchers at the B.C. Cancer Agency found that abnormal areas of tissue in the mouth that absorb the dye, known as toluidine blue, are six times more likely to become cancerous than those that don’t take up the blue stain.

A press release from the American Association of Cancer Research is here.

A team of Canadian scientists may have discovered a way to use a simple dye as a litmus test to identify abnormal areas of the mouth that may become cancers.

According to a study published in the September 1 issue of Cancer Research, the scientists found that lesions that took up the dye known as toluidine blue were six times more likely to become oral cancers.

The team also discovered that the dye-staining lesions contained molecular alterations that are linked to high risk of oral cancers — even at early stages.

“In oral cavity lesions, tissue that stained positive with toluidine blue were more likely to advance to cancer than lesions that did not stain with the dye,” said Miriam Rosin, Ph.D., Director of the BC Cancer Agency’s British Columbia Oral Cancer Prevention Program and Professor, Simon Fraser University. Rosin is the senior author on the study, funded by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, of the National Institutes of Health.

Toluidine blue is an accepted indicator of oral cancers, Rosin said. The current studies, however, demonstrate that the dye accurately predicts which pre-malignant lesions are likely to advance toward disease. Those lesions appear as white or, less frequently, red patches.

“The vast majority of those white patches are often from minor inflammation and irritation,” Rosin said. Some, however, are inclined to become cancer—and are the ones targeted by this simple imaging technology.

An interesting diagnostic test for the dentist that will aid in the early detection of oral cancer.

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