Cancer Types Teams
Oral Cancer Team (OCT)

Starting date: September 2023

Work Programme

Each year, nearly 390 000 people are diagnosed with oral cancer and 190 000 people die from the disease globally. Oral cancer is the 16th most commonly diagnosed cancer type and the 15th most common cause of cancer death. Well-established risk factors for oral cancer include use of tobacco in all forms (smoked or smokeless), consumption of alcoholic beverages, and use of betel quid with or without tobacco. In regions where use of smokeless tobacco and/or areca nut is highly prevalent, oral cancer is a leading cause of death. However, oral cancer prevention is largely under-researched.

The overall aim of the Oral Cancer Team (OCT) is to develop innovative and collaborative research across multidisciplinary themes through cross-Agency and international collaborations, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The overall goal is to provide evidence that can be used to reduce the global burden of cancer.

OCT is developing activities around the following themes to reduce the global burden of oral cancer, particularly in LMICs:

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Current activities within OCT include the following:

• Global burden of oral cancer by subsite
• Inequalities in age at diagnosis of oral cancer
• Role of smokeless tobacco and areca nut use in the global oral cancer burden (PAF-SLT/AN)
• Evidence and gap maps of oral cancer prevention studies (EGMAP-OC)

• Cost–effectiveness analyses of primary prevention interventions for cessation of smokeless tobacco and/or areca nut use (COST-SLT/AN)
• Smoking cessation intervention trial for smoking parents (SmokPar)

• Cost–effectiveness analyses of secondary prevention (screening) (COST-SCR)
• Development of an oral cancer risk score to optimize screening strategies for oral cancer (OC-RISK)

• Effects of smoking cessation on prognosis of oral cancer
• Prognostic models of oral cancer with genomic markers
• Patient and health-care factors affecting delays in diagnosis of oral cancer
• Genetic human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region associations with risk of oral cancer

• Development of recommendations for oral cancer screening

Team Composition

Team Leaders
Dr Shama Virani (Scientist), Genomic Epidemiology Branch (GEM), IARC
Email: ViraniS@iarc.who.int
Dr Andre Carvalho (Deputy Branch Head), Early Detection, Prevention, and Infections Branch (EPR), IARC
Dr Béatrice Lauby-Secretan (Head, IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention Programme), Evidence Synthesis and Classification Branch (ESC), IARC
Dr Harriet Rumgay (Epidemiologist), Cancer Surveillance Branch (CSU), IARC

Team members:
Dr Carol De Carvalho (Scientist, GEM)
Ms Elmira Ebrahimi (Doctoral Student, GEM)
Dr Tarik Gheit (Scientist, EGM)
Dr Suzanne T. Nethan (Visiting Scientist, ESC)
Dr Sandra Perdomo (Scientist, GEM)
Dr Amanda Ramos da Cunha (Postdoctoral Scientist, CSU)
Dr Apiwat Sangphukieo (Postdoctoral Scientist, GEM)
Dr Mahdi Sheikh (Scientist, GEM)
Dr Jiri Zavadil (Deputy Branch Head, EGM)

Key networks: International team with collaborators in Brazil, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Malaysia, Poland, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the USA; networks from multicentre studies including Translational Studies of Head and Neck Cancer in South America and Europe (HEADSpAcE; https://headspace.iarc.who.int/); the IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention Programme (https://handbooks.iarc.who.int/).

Key funding: Institut national du Cancer (INCa), France; European Commission, United States National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Key publications

1. IARC (2023). Oral cancer prevention. IARC Handb Cancer Prev. 19:1–358. Available from: https://publications.iarc.who.int/617.
2. Bouvard V, Nethan ST, Singh D, Warnakulasuriya S, Mehrotra R, Chaturvedi A, et al. (2022). IARC perspective on oral cancer prevention. N Engl J Med. 387(21):1999–2005. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsr2210097 PMID:36378601
3. Mandrik O, Roitberg F, Lauby-Secretan B, Parak U, Ramadas K, Varenne B, et al. (2023). Perspective on oral cancer screening: time for implementation research and beyond. J Cancer Policy. 35:100381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcpo.2022.100381 PMID:36599217
4. Gapstur SM, Bouvard V, Nethan ST, Freudenheim JL, Abnet CC, English DR, et al. (2023). The IARC perspective on alcohol reduction or cessation and cancer risk. N Engl J Med. 389(26):2486–94. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMsr2306723 PMID:38157507
5. Rumgay H, Nethan ST, Shah R, Vignat J, Ayo-Yusuf O, Chaturvedi P, et al. (2024). Global burden of oral cancer in 2022 attributable to smokeless tobacco and areca nut consumption: a population attributable fraction analysis. Lancet Oncol. 25(11):1413–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(24)00458-3 PMID:39393386
6. IARC (2024). Evidence and gap maps of oral cancer prevention. Available from: https://handbooks.iarc.who.int/evidence-and-gap-maps/.
7. Ebrahimi E, Sangphukieo A, Park HA, Gaborieau V, Ferreiro-Iglesias A, Diergaarde B, et al.; HEADSpAcE Consortium (2024). Cross-ancestral GWAS identifies 29 novel variants across head and neck cancer subsites. medRxiv. 2024.11.18.24317473. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.11.18.24317473