I wouldn't trust what Oral Cdx tells you. Brush cytology which is a very old idea, has a way lower success rate of being accurate than you were quoted. It's been used in cervical sampling since the 1940's. There are a variety of issues with it. In my mind what Christine has already said, it's relatively superficial, which MAY be enough, but when it comes to this kind of thing I want a gold standard, black and white answer� what is it? That only happens when the pathologist has a really good representative sample. Part of getting that, you can not get with a brush system, no ones brush and there are several out there; and that is architecture. The layers of the cells from the upper epithelium down to the basal cell layer where all cells including cancer cells are born. When you do a punch or incisional biopsy all these layers are there in the proper relationship, and the architecture of them is intact. When you do a brush biopsy, you get scrambled eggs. A very important bit of information is missing.

I have personally banged heads with the owner of Oral Cdx for years. I think it has its place, for superficial quick looks at things which do not have the characteristics of a high risk lesion. More than that, I'm not a fan. But I butt heads with Mark at Cdx because of their misrepresentation of what this technology will and will not do, and the marketing rhetoric that passes for science in that company. There is a place for brush biopsy in the world of diagnosis (not discovery), but at the end of the day no one moves forward to treatment on a brush biopsy finding. If that is the case (it is), then the only argument for the brush is that it is way less involved, and is quick and to the point - but it is far from the equal of a punch or incisional biopsy which are the gold standards.