Study to Correlate Oral Potentially Malignant Disorders with Metabolic Syndrome

Oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs) are conditions of the oral mucosa that are characterized by a high risk of malignancy. Although tobacco and alcohol are known to be risk factors, metabolic syndrome (MetS) has come to be considered as a contributory factor since common mechanisms of action include chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, and oxidative stress. This paper was intended to determine the relationship between metabolic syndrome and oral potentially malignant disorders and also to compare them in terms of their prevalence in patients with and without MetS at a tertiary care hospital in North India. The study was a cross-sectional one performed in two years involving 250 patients who were aged ≥ 18 years. The participants were divided into Group A (MetS, n = 125) and Group B (without MetS, n = 125) in accordance with the typical diagnostic criteria. Comprehensive clinical, endoscopic, and histopathological analysis where necessary was done. Analysis of data was done in SPSS version 26 and a p value below 0.05 was taken to be significant. OPMDs were found to be more common among the patients who had MetS (25.6%) than those without MetS (16%) (p = 0.027). The dominating lesion in the MetS group was leukoplakia and in the non-MetS group, oral submucous fibrosis was prevalent. The most common symptoms were burning sensation and whitish areas. Hypertriglyceridemia and the presence of an increased waist circumference was significantly linked to leukoplakia among components of MetS (p = 0.010). There were male domination in the two groups. Increased percentage of OPMDs, especially leukoplakia is significantly related to metabolic syndrome. Early screening of the metabolism can be useful in screening persons who are at higher risk of oral premalignant conditions.