Photodynamic therapy (PDT) for oral leukoplakia: a systematic review and meta-analysis of single-arm studies examining efficacy and subgroup analyses

OBJECTIVE: This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the treatment of oral leukoplakia and explore the subgroup factors that may influence its effectiveness. METHODS: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases to identify relevant studies. Meta-analysis was performed using Stata15.0 software. Cochran’s Q test and I(2) statistics were used to evaluate heterogeneity, egger’s test was used to evaluate publication bias. RESULTS: The analysis of 17 studies included in this study suggests that PDT may be effective in achieving complete response (CR) [ES = 0.50, 95%CI: (0.33,0.66)], partial response (PR) [ES = 0.42, 95%CI: (0.27,0.56)], no response (NR) [ES = 0.19, 95%CI: (0.11,0.27)]in patients with oral leukoplakia. The recurrence rate was also evaluated [ES = 0.13, 95%CI: (0.08,0.18)]. Subgroup analysis showed that various factors such as light source, wavelength, medium, duration of application, clinical and pathological diagnosis classification influenced efficacy of PDT. The lesion areas of the leukoplakia after treatment were reduced by 1.97cm(2) compared with those before treatment. CONCLUSION: Our findings show that PDT is a viable treatment for oral leukoplakia. However, the effectiveness of the therapy may depend on several factors, as suggested by our subgroup analyses. (Registration no. CRD42023399848 in Prospero, 26/02/2023) SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12903-023-03294-3.