Patient delay in reporting oral cancer is poorly understood.

Data Sources: Studies were sourced using databases as follows: Allied and Complementary Medicine, CANCERLIT, CINAHL, Embase, Medline, and PSYCHINFO. Researchers known to be involved in this area of study were contacted and bibliographic references were manually searched.

Study Selection: Studies were only included if they were published in the English language; were restricted to participants who had malignancies of the oral cavity; at least 90% of these patients had a histological diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma; and if they reported data allowing statistical analysis of the duration of patient delay in reporting their cancer.

Data Extraction And Synthesis: Details of the data extraction process are not given and a qualitative synthesis is presented because of the small number of studies with good methodology and the variability in the factors examined.

Results: Of the 148 papers identified as relevant, only eight studies met the inclusion criteria for the review. In these studies, most clinical/tumour factors, socio-demographic variables, and patient health-related behaviours did not influence the duration of patient delay. Healthcare factors and psychosocial factors may play a role but the research in this area is sparse, atheoretical and of poor quality.

Conclusions: Patient delay in reporting oral cancer is a problem and yet, at present, the reasons for such delays are poorly understood and under-researched. Systematic, high-quality and theory-driven research in this area is urgently required.