# Sensitivity and specificity of the question “do you have any concerns regarding your mouth related to undergoing surgery?” for predicting perioperative oral health problems in patients with primary esophageal and lung cancer: a retrospective observational study

## TL;DR

This study evaluates how well a simple question about mouth concerns predicts oral health issues in cancer patients before surgery.

## Contribution

The study provides new evidence on the diagnostic accuracy of a simple question for predicting oral health problems in esophageal and lung cancer patients.

## Key findings

- The question has low sensitivity (0.263) but high specificity (0.898) for detecting oral health problems.
- There were no significant differences in sensitivity or specificity by sex or cancer type.
- Patients with oral complaints are more likely to have oral health problems during surgery.

## Abstract

Perioperative oral management contributes to the prevention of dental/systemic complications. However, a professional dental checkup before surgery is generally not performed and relies on the patient’s answer to a simple question by medical professionals other than dentists: “Do you have any concerns regarding your mouth related to undergoing surgery?” Here, we evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of this question for predicting perioperative oral health problems in patients with primary esophageal and primary lung cancer.

We performed an oral cavity check in all patients before scheduled surgery for primary esophageal and lung cancer. A total of 183 patients were enrolled (M, 112; F, 71; 24–88 years, median, 69 years), consisting of 61 with primary esophageal cancer (M, 46; F, 15; 24–85 years, median, 69 years) and 122 with primary lung cancer (M, 66; F; 56; 33–88 years, median, 69 years). All subjects provided a response to this question, and an oral cavity check was performed by dentists. The sensitivity and specificity of this question for detecting oral health problems were evaluated retrospectively.

Overall sensitivity and specificity for detecting oral health problems were 0.263 and 0.898, respectively. There were no significant differences by sex or disease (primary esophageal or lung cancer).

This simple question has low sensitivity but high specificity for detecting oral health problems. Although challenging to detect surgical patients with oral health problems by simply asking questions, the results indicated that patients with oral complaints are more likely to have problems during surgery.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13741-024-00394-8.