Oral Cancer Screening

Oral cancer will cause 8,000 deaths just this year, killing roughly 1 person every hour. The mortality rates for oral cancer have not decreased in over 30 years. 72 % of the cases of oral cancer are not diagnosed until stage two or later. Late detection results in a 5 year survival rate of only 52% but improves to 80-90% when detected in an early stage. Most people don’t know that 7800 deaths occurred from oral cancer when compared to 4030 deaths for cervical cancer. HPV is increasing the number of oral cancer cases by 225%. The New England Journal of Medicine states that “Oral HPV infection is strongly associated with oropharyngeal cancer among patients with or without the established risk factor of tobacco and alcohol use.” FDA estimates that 70% of cervical cancers are associated with HPV-16 or HPV-18. In the oral environment, these human papilloma viruses manifest themselves primarily in the oropharynx region including the back of the throat, base of the tongue, tonsils, tonsillar pillars and soft palate.

The traditional risk was in males, over the age of 40 that were heavy smokers and drinkers and that may have had history of cancer. We are seeing the increase of 60 % in oral cancer among the adults under the age of 40. Of these 25 % have no traditional risk factors.

To detect Oral Cancer in our office we use VELscope a special light that allows us to see not only cancerous lesions but also squamous papillomas, candidiasis, viral and bacterial infections, lichen planus, lichenoid mucositis, salivary gland tumors and inflammation from variety of causes such as trauma.

The test is easy and painless! The 5 minutes that it takes may just save your life!