Abstract
PURPOSE: The purpose of this case-control study was to draw attention to the possibility that poor oral hygiene resulting from infrequent and inadequate use of chewing sticks might be the sole cause of oral cancer in 60 patients investigated in the maxillofacial units of two specialist hospitals in eastern Nigeria. METHODS: Sixty cases and 60 controls made up the study population. We matched them for age, gender, period of admission and study site. The interview of all the participants contained data on demographic factors, family history of cancer, tobacco habits, oral hygiene, dietary habits and use of alcohol. We took biopsies of the lesions for histo-pathological examination. We entered the collected data into Microsoft excel package and transported it to Stata for generation of statistical test. RESULT: Poor oral hygiene due to infrequent tooth brushing was associated with primary oral cancer in this patient sample. On the other hand, frequent tooth brushing was related to healthy status. CONCLUSION: In the absence of other known carcinogens, poor oral hygiene may be the single factor that caused oral cancer in these subjects. Research is needed to investigate the pathological mechanism that is associated with this risk factor.