Screening of oral squamous cell carcinoma by serum changes: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is the sixth common cancer in the world and 90% of oral malignant tumors. The aim of this study was the investigation of changes in some metabolic elements of OSCC patients' serum. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, international databases such as PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Web of Science, and National (Magiran, IranMedex) were searched from 1980 to 2019. To analyze the data, a random-effects model was used to combine the differences in the mean of studies in STATA Software (version 12). RESULTS: A total of 724 articles were found with initial searching that 474 duplicate articles, 228 articles were excluded by reviewing the title and abstracts, and 17 articles were excluded from the study due to lack of inclusion criteria. Finally, five articles entered the meta-analysis phase. The mean difference value for zinc concentration of blood serum was 2.01 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.36–3.66) and for copper was 1.04 (95% CI: 0.01–2.07). In both populations, the heterogeneity was found between studies (I(2) = 97.4, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Probably higher serum levels of copper and zinc could be one way to help to do a primary screening of OSCC in suspected patients.