Awareness and Knowledge of the Role of Iron and Copper in Oral Submucous Fibrosis Patients: A Survey amongst the Dental Practitioners of Chennai

Author(s):

Nadhirah Faiz, Manjari Chaudhary* and Iffat Nasim

Oral submucous fibrosis is a precancerous condition caused by use of the areca nut. The reported prevalence of oral submucous fibrosis was 0.16%. It is extremely important to understand the level of knowledge of practitioners in not only diagnosis of oral submucous fibrosis, but even in the pathogenesis of oral submucous fibrosis. The aim of the study is to determine the knowledge and attitude of dental practitioners of presence of iron and copper in oral submucous fibrosis a sample size of 250 dental practitioners in the general public of Chennai in India was selected and an online questionnaire of 10 questions on oral submucous fibrosis was circulated. The data collected was tabulated in Microsoft Excel and the data is analyzed using IBM SPSS version 20.0 software. It can be said that the majority of clinicians are well educated about the etiological agent, malignancy rate as well as clinical features and are not aware about levels of iron and copper in oralsubmucous fibrosis.