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ORPHA:357154

Oral submucous fibrosis

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: OSMF

Publications

4,137

Trials

11

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

949

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

Oral submucous fibrosis (OSMF) is a chronic, disease that alters the fibroelasticity of the oral submucosa, prevalent in India and Southeast Asia but rare elsewhere, and characterized by burning and pain in the oral cavity, loss of gustatory sensation, the presence of blanched fibrous bands and stiffening of the oral mucosa and oro-pharynx (leading to trismus and a reduction in mouth opening) and an increased risk of developing oral squamous cell cancer (3-19%). It is usually associated with the chewing of the areca nut (an ingredient in betel quid) but the exact is unknown and there is currently no effective treatment.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Additional Mondo synonyms (2)

oral cavity submucous fibrosis · oral submucosal fibrosis, including of tongue

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    4,137 matched papers (2,711 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    11 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (3 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

4,137

4,137 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

4,137 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

2,711 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 4,137 · MeSH hits: 163

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

949

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Gadbail AR5 papers · 2026

    Department of Dentistry, Government Medical College & Hospital, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Gondivkar SM5 papers · 2026

    Department of Oral Medicine & Radiology, Government Dental College & Hospital, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Tan J5 papers · 2026

    Department of Stomatology The First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan University of Chinese Medicine Changsha China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Sarode S4 papers · 2026

    Department of Oral Pathology & Microbiology, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College & Hospital, Dr. D. Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, Maharashtra State, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Sarode SC4 papers · 2026

    Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, Maharashtra, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Zhang X4 papers · 2026

    Hunan University of Chinese Medicine, Changsha, Hunan, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Zhang Y4 papers · 2026

    Key Laboratory for Optoelectronic Information Perception and Instrumentation of Jiangxi Province, Nanchang Hangkong University, Nanchang, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Cai X3 papers · 2026

    Central Laboratory, Peking University School and Hospital of Stomatology & National Center for Stomatology & National Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases & National Engineering Research Center of Oral Biomaterials and Digital Medical Devices & Beijing Key Laboratory of Digital Stomatology & Research Center of Engineering and Technology for Computerized Dentistry Ministry of Health & NMPA Key Laboratory for Dental Materials, Beijing, China; State Key Laboratory of Innovative Immunotherapy, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: caixinjia1994@163.com.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Chen Y3 papers · 2026

    Stomatology Hospital, School of Stomatology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Zhejiang Provincial Clinical Research Center for Oral Diseases, Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedical Research of Zhejiang Province, Cancer Center of Zhejiang University, Engineering Research Center of Oral Biomaterials and Devices of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Gupta S3 papers · 2025

    Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Institute of Sardar Patel Post Graduate Institute of Dental and Medical Sciences, Lucknow, India.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

11

interventional trials for this specific condition

11 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 3 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

11 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 92.1th percentile).

low confidence · 92.1th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

11 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

5 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Oral submucous fibrosis" OR "oral cavity submucous fibrosis" OR "oral submucosal fibrosis, including of tongue" OR "oral submucosal fibrosis, including of the tongue"

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: Oral Submucous Fibrosis

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Oral submucous fibrosis" OR "oral cavity submucous fibrosis" OR "oral submucosal fibrosis, including of tongue" OR "oral submucosal fibrosis, including of the tongue"

Interventional trials matched via: both (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 11 interventional · 5 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Synonyms dropped by stoplist: OSMF

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (4137) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-27T14:32:18.192Z