Endoscopic methods are critical in the early diagnosis of mucosal lesions of the head and neck. In recent years, new examination methods and classification systems have been developed and introduced into clinical practice. All of these new techniques target the notion of optical biopsy, which tries to assess the nature of the lesion before histology examination. Many methods suffer from interpretation issues due to subjective interpretation of the findings. Therefore, multiple classification systems have been developed to assist the proper interpretation of mucosal findings and reduce the error rate. They provide various perspectives on the assessment and interpretation of mucosa changes. This article provides a comprehensive and critical view of the available classification systems as well as their advantages and disadvantages.

Department of Craniofacial Surgery Faculty of Medicine University of Ostrava 701 03 Ostrava Czech Republic

Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery University Hospital Hradec Králove Faculty of Medicine in Hradec Králove Charles University 500 03 Hradec Králové Czech Republic

Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery University Hospital Ostrava 708 52 Ostrava Czech Republic

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