The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: This retrospective cohort investigated the feasibility of using cytological methods to detect and asses presence and degree of oral epithelial atypia in tobacco users in the Sudan.

Methods: Three hundred subjects were investigated,(100 toombak dippers, 100 cigarette smokers, and 100 non-tobacco users). Five patients with oral squamous carcinoma were included as internal controls.

Results: Without prior knowledge of their tobacco exposure, atypia ascertained in 29 subjects were assigned case category and the remaining 271 normal were assigned controls. Among the cases, 11 were toombak dippers, 14 were smokers and 4 non-tobacco users. Epithelial atypia, were found in all 5 cases with carcinoma. Inflammatory infiltrate was more frequently observed among cigarette smokers and non-tobacco users in comparison to toombak dippers. The adjusted OR and 95% CI were 3 (0.91-9.7) and 4(1.2-12.3) among toombak users and cigarette smokers respectively.