Prospective Evaluation of Surgical Outcome After Transoral CO2 Laser Resection of Potentially Malignant and Early Oral Malignancy.

A prospective observational study was done at the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, a tertiary referral center for cancer care in India with an aim to assess the surgical outcomes of CO₂ laser resection of oral lesions in terms of operative time, blood loss, hospital stay, postoperative pain, time to re-epithelization, pathological margins achieved and the postoperative scar. The excision was performed in 30 patients with a diagnosis of either potentially malignant lesions (leucoplakia, erythroplakia) or early cancers, i.e., carcinoma in situ or T1/T2 squamous cell carcinoma of the anterior oral cavity (tongue, buccal mucosa), adhering to standard oncological principles, and the resultant defect was left for secondary healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]