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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Indian J Med Paediatr Oncol 2012; 33(02): 71-79
DOI: 10.4103/0971-5851.99726
REVIEW ARTICLE

Arecanut as an emerging etiology of oral cancers in India

Gunjan Shah
Consultant Maxillofacial Surgeon, Shalby Hospitals, Ahmedabad, India
,
Pankaj Chaturvedi
Department of Surgery, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
,
Sagar Vaishampayan
Department of Head & Neck Oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
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Abstract

Arecanut (AN) usage is widespread in Asian countries, especially India and Taiwan. The incidence of oral cancer is increasing day by day, but there is no exponential increase with tobacco usage. Especially in the country like Taiwan where betel quid mostly do not contain tobacco, AN can be correlated with the increased incidence of cancer. There are different studies in the literature about AN and oral cancer but none of them have concluded with the definite pathway for carcinogenesis. The present paper includes reviews of the literature for AN and oral cancer and summarizes the possible mechanisms associated with AN-induced carcinogenesis; and we have also tried to propose pathway of carcinogenesis.

Keywords

Arecanut - Asian countries - betel quid - carcinogenesis - oral cancer


Publication History

Article published online:
13 April 2022

© 2012. Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial-License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.)

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