Câncer de boca no Estado do Rio de Janeiro: cuidado e rede de atenção a partir do Centro de Especialidades Odontológicas (CEO)

Abstract

Mouth cancer (CA) represents a public health problem worldwide, with high morbidity and mortality rates. The devaluation of initial injuries by the professional, combined with the technical inability to recognize these injuries, as well as the delay in public assistance, errors in the initial diagnosis, as well as the lack of campaigns about the disease and its risk factors, are factors that reduce the chances diagnosis of oral CA in its initial stages. To carry out early diagnosis of potentially malignant and suspected malignant lesions, it is essential to have a structured and organized health care network, with professionals trained to identify lesions at an early stage and perform biopsy for diagnostic purposes and subsequent analysis in the laboratory. that has a professional specialized in pathological anatomy. In this sense, the present study aimed to discuss the role and performance of Dental Specialty Centers (CEOs) in relation to the procedure for collecting soft tissue biopsies from the mouth in the State of Rio de Janeiro, with diagnostic purposes, considering their role in offering this procedure. The study is a descriptive and exploratory research on the role and performance of CEOs with a focus on offering diagnostic examinations for oral CA by these centers, from 2017 to 2019. The results indicate that CEOs have a central role in the diagnosis of oral cancer, but below what they could potentially offer as there was no production of biopsies in 47 CEOs (57%) of the 82 existing CEOs in the period analyzed. One of the limits of the work was the inability to evaluate support systems, as well as the contribution of university health services to the analysis of these exams due to insufficient public data on specific anatomopathological exams for oral cancer. Such results seek to provide support so that health managers can optimize the flow of users through the organization and easy access to the network, identifying and resolving difficulties faced by these centers in carrying out these procedures, reducing delays in diagnostic investigation and treatment of this condition.