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We have used the Mod-MSPen to analyze OCSCC and normal oral tissues spanning various anatomical areas: tongue, buccal mucosa, gingiva, and floor of mouth. The molecular data obtained presented distinct trends in the abundances of metabolites such as glutamate, which was consistently observed in higher relative abundances in OCSCC tissues when compared to normal oral tissues. These trends were corroborated using mass spectrometry imaging, which revealed clear spatio-molecular differences in OCSCC and adjacent normal oral mucosa tissues. Statistical classifiers built from the data provided high performance for disease detection, with &gt;95% agreement with standard histopathology. To evaluate clinical suitability, we also deployed the Mod-MSPen for in vivo analysis of OCSCC and normal oral tissues alongside clinical procedures.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.2603602123","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,3]],"date-time":"2026-08-03T19:06:16Z","timestamp":1785783976000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.cm10313","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Adapting the MasSpec Pen for noninvasive detection of oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma"],"prefix":"10.1073","volume":"123","author":[{"given":"Charles A.","family":"Wolfe","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/02pttbw34","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}],"name":"Department of Surgery, Baylor College of Medicine","place":["Houston"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tassia 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