Discover how evolving evidence is reshaping oral cancer guidelines and informing patient care. What all dentists need to know now about new oral cancer recommendations and the ADA's innovative approach to clinical practice guidelines.

Special Guest: Dr. Alessandro Villa

For more information, show notes and transcripts visit https://www.ada.org/podcast

Show Notes

In this episode, we dive into the new ADA Living Guideline Program, the first in oral health, and learn all about this new initiative and its first set of recommendations on oral cancer.

Our special guest is Dr. Alessandro Villa, DDS, PhD, MPH, Chief of oral medicine, oral oncology and dentistry at Miami Cancer Institute, where he also serves as program director of the Oral Oncology Fellowship. He is a Professor at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University. Dr. Villa specializes in oral mucosal and salivary gland diseases, oral precancers and oral complications related to cancer treatment. Before joining Miami Cancer Institute in 2022, he was Chief of Oral Medicine and Oral Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF); he also directed the oral medicine residency programs at UCSF and Harvard University. His research focuses on oral leukoplakia, cancer therapy-related complications, and the prevention of HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers. Dr. Villa is actively involved in several investigator-initiated and sponsored clinical trials and has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed publications.

Dr. Villa provides an in-depth overview of the ADA's Living Guideline Program, explaining its purpose, how it works, and the key ways it differs from traditional guidelines.

Living Guidelines are developed with the same level of rigor as traditional guidelines, but they use a distinct infrastructure design for continuous updates to emerging evidence, Dr. Villa shares.

The development of these Living Guidelines is driven by a multidisciplinary panel that typically includes general dentists, dental hygienists, oral medicine and oral pathology specialists, oral surgeons, and other relevant experts. These panels also incorporate patients and additional stakeholders.

Dr. Villa shares that they use the great evidence-to-decision framework to help dentists efficiently move from data to recommendations in a timely manner. All of this is built inside a digital platform.

When evidence is conflicting or limited, Dr. Villa explains, the transparent process for Living Guidelines ensures clarity and integrity.

The first set of recommendations from the ADA's Living Guideline program is on the evaluation of potentially malignant disorders in the oral cavity. Dr. Villa gives us more details about these recommendations, and the findings to date.

Dr. Villa explains how the results of the Living Guidelines recommendations affect how clinicians should implement these guidelines.

Resources

Learn more about the ADA's Living Guideline program.

Take a look at the updated oral cancer guideline in the Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA). These updated recommendations guide the use of cytology adjuncts for early oral cancer detection in an interactive format.

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