
118 Handbook of Biomedical Optics
inter- and intra-observer disagreement (vanderWaal et al. 1997,
Fischer et al. 2004, 2005).
Leukoplakia (“white plaque”) is the most commonly observed
suspicious lesion found in the oral cavity (Cawson and Odell
2002). In a study of 3256 biopsied leukoplakias, only 20% dem-
onstrated dysplasia, CIS, or inltrating squamous cell carci-
noma (SCC); therefore, a number of unnecessary biopsies are
performed (Waldron and Shafer 1975). e major goal of reec-
tance studies in the oral cavity has been to develop a tool to
noninvasively and objectively discriminate diseased from non-
diseased oral lesions. Table ...