Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of multislice computed tomography (CT) in detection of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of oral cavity in clinically suspected patients taking histopathology as gold standard.

Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study has been conducted at Radiology department of Civil Hospital Karachi from 8th September 2018 to March 2019. All the cases having suspected oral squamous cell carcinoma and either of gender were included. Patients underwent computed tomography by using multislice scanner. Then patients undergone biopsy sampling and patients were labeled as positive or negative for squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity on MDCT and histopathology. Sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of multislice CT for squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity were measured taking histopathology as gold standard.

Results: Total 168 cases were studied and out of them males were 76.8% and females were 23.2%. Mean gutka addiction history was 11.52±5.21 years. Mean lesion size on CT scan was 2.44±1.43 cm. In our study, 35.1% patients were diagnosed positive by multislice computed tomography and 43.5% through histopathology. Sensitivity, Specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy were 86.4%, 79.8%, 69.9%, 91.6%, and 82.1% respectively.

Conclusion: Multislice CT observed to be the effective diagnostic tool for the detection of SCC of oral cavity.

Keywords: Multislice Computed Tomography, cancer, Oral Cavity