Narrow Band Imaging: An Effective and Early Diagnostic Tool in Diagnosis of Oral Malignant Lesions

The management of oral carcinoma leads to both cosmetic and functional deficit to the patient and the confirmatory histopathology is a time consuming process which may be a reason for a reduced follow up and compliance of the patient. We hereby use this study as an opportunity to tell that narrow band imaging (NBI) serves both the above purposes in an earlier period and in a non-invasive manner and thereby improving the lifestyle of the patients. To find out a better non-invasive and time saving diagnostic tool in the management of premalignant and malignant oral lesions in its earlier period. A prospective cross sectional study of 38 patients presenting to the department of ENT, MGMMC, MYH, Indore was taken with suspicious lesions and subjected to endoscopic examination by both white light and NBI and samples were sent to histopathological examination for confirmation. The Intrapapillary Capillary Loop were identified through NBI with Type I (50%) and Type II (31%) to be the most common pattern both correlating with the histopathological squamous cell carcinoma. The sensitivity and specificity of White Light Endoscopy is to be 75.75% and 76.43% respectively and of NBI to be 93.93% and 80% respectively. Narrow band imaging is found to be an optical diagnostic tool in the diagnosis of the lesions at an earlier stage and preventing from further functional and structural deterioration by the disease progression.