# Low-Cost and Compact Multimodal Intraoral Confocal Probe for Oral Cancer Detection and Diagnosis

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA · 2020 · $185,419

## Abstract

Abstract
Oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) together rank as the sixth most common cancer
worldwide, accounting for approximately 400,000 new cases each year. The 5-year survival rate in the U.S. for
OSCC is 62%, the survival rate is only 10-40% and the cure rate around 30% in the developing world. Low
survival rate is primarily attributed to the delay in diagnosis and the resultant progression of disease to an
advanced stage at diagnosis. Early diagnosis offers the best chance to improved treatment outcomes and
survival for an individual diagnosed with OSCC.
The objective of this proposed project focuses on developing and evaluating a low-cost, compact, smartphone
compatible multimodal intraoral confocal probe for noninvasive in situ detection of oral dysplasia and early stage
cancer. The key innovation of the proposed intraoral confocal probe is low-cost and compact confocal intraoral
probe using actively addressable point source array - microLED (µLED) without any moving parts to achieve 3D
confocal imaging. The wide-FOV autofluorescence imaging (AFI) and polarized white light imaging (pWLI) will
identify the suspicious regions with the help of trained neural network and guide confocal scan to obtain tissue
microstructure for accurate diagnosis. We will achieve this objective through the following two Aims: (1) develop
multimodal confocal imaging probe with µLED array and (2) evaluate the performance and clinical feasibility of
multimodal intraoral probe.
The proposed project has a great significance. The compact, multimodal handheld intraoral imaging probe, in
conjunction with the deep learning image classification method, will enable noninvasive in situ early detection
and diagnosis of oral dysplasia and cancer from benign conditions in a clinical setting, significantly reducing
disease progression, reducing death rates from oral cancer and improving the quality of life. The cost-effective,
smartphone compatible design is extremely suitable for screening oral cancer through remote diagnosis in low-
resource setting, significantly improve the survive rate of oral cancers in low- and middle- income countries.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9983670
- **Project number:** 5R21DE028734-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
- **Principal Investigator:** Rongguang Liang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $185,419
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9983670

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9983670, Low-Cost and Compact Multimodal Intraoral Confocal Probe for Oral Cancer Detection and Diagnosis (5R21DE028734-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9983670. Licensed CC0.

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