In a rural block in North East India, community health workers (CHW) empowered with a mobile phone-based application screened a total of 2,686 participants for Oral Potentially Malignant Lesions (OPMLs), and an oral medicine specialist recommended treatment remotely. Independent risk factors were determined using independent multiple logistic regression models. Nearly 700 (26%) participants were identified with OPMLs. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values, negative predictive values and accuracy of the CHW was 70.3, 88.4, 66.8, 89.9% and 83.7% respectively. Male gender, married status, smokeless tobacco, paan, areca-nut and alcohol consumption were independent predictors of OPMLs, the burden of which in North East India can be attributed to the high consumption of tobacco and non-tobacco products. Such programmes, with the recommendations from remote specialists, will facilitate early detection in remote settings.
Keywords: North East India; Prevalence; mHealth; precancerous lesions; tobacco.