This year alone, nearly forty thousand Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal (back of the mouth) cancer -- and more than eight thousand people will die from it. That's about one death per hour, twenty-four hours every day, all year long. Of the forty thousand Americans who receive the diagnosis, only half of them will be alive in five years.
Those are some powerful numbers, and yet oral cancer is one of those kinds of cancer that people most often discover too late -- after it's metastasized into the lymph nodes of the neck or some other area in the body. By the time that's happened, the primary tumor has had the opportunity to grow deep into the local muscle and bone structures, all without causing any real pain or discomfort.
Risk Factors
Cancer is a strange disease because it doesn't have one big risk factor. Rather, it's an accumulation of small factors that work together. Alcohol use, tobacco use, HPV, an unhealthy diet, heavy metal exposure, carcinogen exposure, and many other factors all contribute, as does the most obvious culprit; poor oral health.
Detection
Much like breast cancer and regular mammograms, almost the only way to detect oral cancer is to deliberately look and feel for it with your eyes and hands. Or, more likely, have your dentist or doctor look for it with his/her eyes and hands. If you have a sore or discolored area in your mouth and it doesn't heal within two weeks, have it examined by a professional. Similarly, any difficulty speaking, swallowing, or chewing that persists for more than 14 days needs professional attention.
If you have even the vaguest notion that you belong to a few of the risk-factor groups mentioned above, contact our office and schedule an appointment for an oral cancer checkup immediately.
No comments:
Post a Comment