Oral Medicine and Radiology – Expanding the Boundaries of Knowledge and Exploring New Horizons

Dear IAOMR members, Greetings from the Editorial Team, As I write this editorial for the first issue of Volume 37 (2025), my heart is the filled with gratitude towards my editorial team and toward the entire Indian Academy of Oral Medicine and Radiology (IAOMR) fraternity for their continuous support and guidance. This year started with a successful organization of the 1st Reviewer’s Training Webinar for IAOMR members. The webinar had certain targeted sessions, which were designed to provide practical insights thereby improving peer assessment. We received a profound response and all the delegates attended the sessions with enthusiasm and a curiosity to learn. All the lectures were interactive with participants asking their doubts, giving certain suggestions to the editorial team, and reflecting on to their own reviewing ability. I thank all of them for their active participation. During the self-appraisal session, one of the delegates raised doubts on the limitations of OMR and whether, certain articles like “Correlation between salivary levels and tissue expression status of HER2 in breast cancer patients—A cross-sectional study”[1] should be reviewed by us? Our speaker answered this question affirmatively and of course with a positive response. When it comes to specialty practice, I believe that we, as Oral Medicine and Radiologists have many doors opening outwards, one of them being “Orofacial Pain Clinic.” Other Dental specialists who are trained to treat odontogenic-related issues pertaining to the patient’s chief complaint rarely look out for any alternate etiology. On the contrary, we as Oral Physicians are trained to Examine, Investigate, Diagnose, and then treat the cause. Pain in the orofacial region can arise from a wide distribution of structures ranging from pulpal tissue to the cranial meninges.[2] Most often Pulpal pain is inflammatory and acute in nature, whereas chronic pain is often a sign of some underlying disease which can be broadly classified as Musculoskeletal (most often Temporomandibular Disorders [TMDs]), Neuropathic or Neurovascular.[3] TMDs broadly involve the derangement of Temporomandibular joint, the masticatory muscles, the cervical muscles, and other surrounding structures. These entities are being regularly addressed and are being investigated in our curriculum. However, taking a detailed history along with the timeline of the disorder, inspection and palpation, examination of trigger points or reproducing the pain are still the inevitable steps in zeroing down to the provisional diagnosis. In addition to the age-old therapies like Occlusal Splints, Infrared, TENS, not so very recent treatment modalities like Photo biomodulation (PBM) therapy, SCENAR,[4] Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Trigger point injections may be practiced routinely. Neuropathic pain has been further researched and classified based on symptoms as episodic and continuous. Episodic nature of pain involves the classic facial neuralgias such as trigeminal neuralgia, glossopharyngeal, Occipital and Nervus Intermedius Neuralgia.[5] The pharmacotherapeutic management of these entities and those of continuous nature namely Painful Trigeminal Neuropathies, Metabolic Neuropathies, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) etc.[6] consists mainly of standard non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), Antiepileptic drugs and tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). Prescribing these drugs and monitoring the patients for any side-effects, if reported, is within the purview of our specialty. The International Classification of Headache Disorders broadly classifies various headaches into two groups—primary and secondary, with a third group including neuropathies, facial pain.[7] The etiology is believed to be caused by a complex interaction between nerves and blood vessels in the brain, which leads to inflammation and pain signals being sent to the brain. Headaches are highly co-morbid with oral and facial pain and share interactions with the Orofacial pain.[6] Differentiating these two entities and understanding their correlation becomes an integral part of Orofacial pain management, thus broadening the horizon of the Oral Medicine and Radiology specialty. In a similar vein, Geriatric Oral medicine, Pediatric Oral medicine, Transplantation Medicine, Palliative care are certain practice based super specializations. To excel in these fields, an Oral Physician must sharpen his/her analytical ability, be passionate toward Oral Medicine and have an overall holistic approach towards the patients. Then truly, the sky is the limit!