The ‘AEIOU’ system to identify primary oral melanoma

Abstract

Primary oral melanoma (POM) is a rare entity that is often asymptomatic and is associated with a poor prognosis. Following the example of the ABCDE acronym for the clinical diagnosis of early cutaneous melanoma, we would like to introduce another acronym, AEIOU, to identify lesions that are clinically suspicious for POM. The letter “A” means age older than 50; “E” means ethnicity in reference to the higher occurrence among Asians, Hispanics, and Africans; “I” means irregularity in reference to irregular borders or color; “O” means oral palate, the most frequent site of POM; and “U” means ulceration. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first to describe an acronym AEIOU as a diagnostic aid for POM among health practitioners and the general population. Future studies should test the acronym's sensitivity and specificity for POM diagnosis in clinical practice.