• The Effectiveness of Mobile Health in the Management of Oral Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review
  • Elaheh Hatamzadeh,1,* Omid Karimi,2 Armin Ghomashchi,3 Mohammadreza Rahmani,4
    1. Research Committee, Babol University of Medical Sciences, Babol, Iran
    2. Student Research Center, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran
    3. Student Research Center, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran
    4. Student Research Center, School of Medicine, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran


  • Introduction: Oral cancer is one of the most common types of cancer with dangerous consequences. Nowadays, screening and early detection of oral cancer is possible with the use of mobile health. Therefore, the present systematic review was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of mobile health on the management of oral cancer patients.
  • Methods: The present study follows the PRISMA guidelines to investigate the effectiveness of mobile health on the management of patients with oral cancer. For this purpose, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched to retrieve English articles without time limit and until September 25, 2022. The search strategy included the terms "Mobile health", "Oral cancer" and their synonyms. The inclusion criteria in the study were original and English articles that were carried out with the aim of evaluating the "the effectiveness of the use of mobile health on the management of oral cancer patients". After selecting the studies, considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, data collection was done using the data extraction form based on the study objectives. Data analysis was done through content analysis method.
  • Results: In the initial review of the three databases, 168 articles were retrieved and entered into the Endnote software. After removing duplicates (84 articles) and unrelated ones based on evaluation of title and abstract (33 articles), and full text (28 articles), finally 23 articles remained. 70% of mobile health interventions were used for diagnosis, 18% for risk assessment, 4% for treatment, 4% for surveillance and 4% for follow-up of the patient. The methods used to manage oral cancer included mobile phone application (62%), artificial intelligence algorithms (30%), SMS service (4%), and tablet-based microscope (4%). The target population included oral cancer patients and people with oral lesions (48%), normal and high-risk population (40%), physicians (4%) and treated people (4%), and the target population was not mentioned in 4% of articles. 96% of the studies indicated the success of mobile health in improving the management of oral cancer, while in 4% of the studies, the use of mobile health did not make a difference in the process of disease management.
  • Conclusion: The review of articles showed that mobile health has an effective role in the management of oral cancer. Various interventions and services necessary for oral cancer patients can be performed remotely. Therefore, it is suggested to use mobile health capabilities to provide services to patients more broadly.
  • Keywords: Mobile health, mobile app, oral cancer, mouth neoplasm