April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month

Each year in the US alone, approximately 34,000 individuals are newly diagnosed with oral cancer. If you add throat cancers to that number (which have the same risk factors), that number will increase to about 46,000. The death rate from oral cancer is very high; about half those diagnosed will not survive more than five year.

While these statistics are alarming, this rate is drastically reduced with early diagnosis. In addition to a visual examination for oral cancer, we have two additional services available to our patients. We offer exams with the VELscope, a state-of-the-art device which allows us to see beneath the surface to detect potentially dangerous growths not yet visible to the naked eye.

We also offer salivary Human Papillomavirus (HPV) testing. HPV is a common virus that has infected more than 20 million people in the United States, with approximately 6 million new cases each year. There are many different types of HPV, and the health risk varies depending upon the type of virus. While some types of HPV are low-risk and may cause skin lesions such as warts, there are other HPV types that are classified as high-risk. Certain high-risk types of HPV are linked with approximately 90% cervical cancers as well as causing other types of cancer such as cancer of the mouth, tongue, tonsils and throat areas.

Call us today to make an appointment.