Scope and applications of biosensors in early detection of oropharyngeal cancers

Oral cancer is a common and aggressive cancer with high morbidity, mortality, and recurrence rate globally. the over last three decades, number of annual deaths due to oral malignancy has remained around the same. Early detection of precancerous lesions such as leukoplakia, erythroplakia and other nonhealing ulcers pose a diagnostic challenge and dilemma for prognosis. Screening tools which serve as the predictive and prognostic markers are the most urgent need of the hour. The patient samples can be in the form of saliva, serum, or oral exfoliative cytological smears can be used for rapid and early detection of oral cancer. Biomarkers and biosensing techniques are more favored methods in diagnostics as, in addition to their advantage of avoiding surgical interventions, their application is fast and user-friendly. In oral and pharyngeal cancers or oropharyngeal cancers (OPCs) several studies are being done for various biosensors. This chapter gives an overview for the most relevant biomolecules which have been proven efficient in diagnosis using biosensor-based devices in predicting OPC.