Clinical characteristics of narrow-band imaging of oral erythroplakia and its correlation with pathology

BACKGROUND: To analyze the clinical application of endoscope with narrow-band imaging (NBI) system in detecting high-grade dysplasia, carcinoma in situ, and carcinoma in oral erythroplakia. METHODS: The demographic, histopathological data, and NBI vasculature architectures of patients receiving surgical intervention for oral erythroplakia were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed statistically. RESULTS: A total of 72 patients, including 66 males and 6 females, with mean age of 54.6 ± 11.2 years, were enrolled. The odds ratio of detecting high-grade dysplasia, carcinoma in situ, and carcinoma by twisted elongated morphology and destructive pattern of intraepithelial microvasculature was 15.46 (confidence interval 95 %: 3.81–72.84), and the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy were 80.95 %, 78.43 %, 60.71 %, 90.91 %, and 79.17 %, respectively, which were significantly better than other two established NBI criteria (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Twisted, elongated, and destructive patterns of intraepithelial papillary capillary loop of NBI images are indicators for high-grade dysplasia, carcinoma in situ, and invasive carcinoma in oral erythroplakia.