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Oral cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide. Despite easy access to the oral cavity and significant advances in treatment, the morbidity and mortality rates for oral cancer patients are still very high, mainly due to late-stage diagnosis when treatment is less successful. Oral cancer has also been found to be the most expensive cancer to treat in the United States. Early diagnosis of oral cancer can significantly improve patient survival rate and reduce medical costs. There is an urgent unmet need for an accurate and sensitive molecular-based diagnostic tool for early oral cancer detection. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy has gained increasing attention in cancer research due to its ability to elucidate qualitative and quantitative information of biochemical content and molecular-level structural changes in complex biological systems. The diagnosis of a disease is based on biochemical changes underlying the disease pathology rather than morphological changes of the tissue. It is a versatile method that can work with tissues, cells, or body fluids. In this review article, we aim to summarize the studies of infrared spectroscopy in oral cancer research and detection. It provides early evidence to support the potential application of infrared spectroscopy as a diagnostic tool for oral potentially malignant and malignant lesions. The challenges and opportunities in clinical translation are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atherosclerosis is a pathological vascular state caused by the interaction of environmental and hereditary factors. Epigenetic modifications may be the bridge connecting environmental factors and genetic factors. A search for publications on the Web of Science database in the field of atherosclerosis related to epigenetics was conducted from the earliest mention to 31 December 2020. Data on total and annual publications, citations, impact factors, Hirsch (H)-index, citation times, most prolific authors, and frequently published journals were collected for quantitative and qualitative comparison. A total of 1848 publications related to epigenetics and atherosclerosis were found. The major contributing countries were the China (522, 28.23%), United States (485, 26.23%), and Germany (119, 6.44%). The greatest number of retrieved publications were published in the journal, "Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology" (62, 3.66%). The publication "Oxidative Stress and Diabetic Complications" was cited 2370 times. The most frequent keywords were "DNA methylation" and "LncRNA". Publications on epigenetic research in the atherosclerosis field have increased significantly every year, indicating that the study of epigenetic modifications plays an increasingly important role in understanding the pathology of atherosclerosis.