ABSTRACT
Introduction: General dental practitioners (GDPs) play an important role in screening and early detection of oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMD) and oral cancer. Aim: This survey aims to assess the knowledge and awareness of general dental practitioners about chairside diagnostic techniques for screening of inflammatory oral lesions, potentially malignant lesions and oral cancer. Materials and Methods: GDPs (n=125) were surveyed about their knowledge about chairside diagnostic techniques for early detection and screening of suspicious oral lesions. The interview was based on a pre-structured questionnaire containing 14 closed ended questions. Chi square test was used for evaluating the association of survey parameters. Result: 95.2% of dentists do diagnosis and management of suspicious oral lesions along with chief complaints. There is a strong association between the educational status of GDPs and their method for management of suspicious oral lesions (p=0.002). 84.5% of the postgraduate GDPs are aware of chemiluminescence methods than graduate level GDPs (p =0.0009). Majority of the graduate GDPs are unaware of VELScope(p=0.0009). Usage of all non-invasive techniques was found to be less among graduate GDPs (p=0.002). Conclusion: The overall awareness of the dentists involved in the study were good and postgraduate GDPs are more aware and practically ahead about the non-invasive diagnostic techniques than graduate GDPs.