Labial Potentially Malignant Disorders and Cancer

Labial potentially malignant disorders of the oral cavity are one of the main risk factors for the onset of oral cancer. Oral cancer now accounts for 3-5% of malignant tumors in Western world statistics. For this reason, the treatment of precancerous diseases of the oral cavity assumes an undeniable importance in preventing the onset of this pathology. Pre-cancers of the oral cavity include the forms with the highest risk of malignant transformation (erythroplasia, homogeneous and non-homogeneous leukoplakia) and the other forms with a low index of malignant transformation (lichen planus, oral submucosal fibrosis, leucoplakia, and chronic hyperplastic candidiasis). The cause of the onset of the precancerous oral cavity is unknown, but there are usually some risk factors that, alone or in combination, play an action favoring the appearance of the mucosal lesion. The main risk factors for precancerous lesions in the oral cavity are tobacco, alcohol, chronic local trauma, poor oral hygiene, chronic dietary and vitamin deficiencies, exposure to diagnostic and therapeutic ionizing radiation, viral and fungal infections and immunological factors. In this chapter, we will focus on actinic cheilitis, an extremely common precancerous condition of the lips, and oral cancer.