The Cancerous Effects of Marijuana

Cancer of all kinds happens when cells in your body begin to operate incorrectly, due to either physical or chemical stress. Wounds that fail to heal for one reason or another are one of the more common causes of cancer, as are pesticides and other chemicals that affect your cells' functions. Marijuana brings both of these threats to the table.

Cannabis and Your Immune System

Marijuana dampens the immune system, especially in those areas directly affected by the smoke; your mouth, throat, and lungs. That means that pot smokers are much more likely than the average person to get oral infections, and those infections don't heal quickly, either. Cannabis also causes xerostomia -- a malfunctioning of the salivary glands that leads to dry mouth -- which makes your mouth tissues more vulnerable to injury.

Marijuana and Oral Cancer

Eventually, chronic pot smokers are much more likely than others to develop something called oral leukoplakia -- thick, white patches on the mucus membranes of the mouth. Oral leukoplakia is often considered a pre-cancerous growth, meaning it's quite likely to turn into cancer. The most common cannabis-related oral cancer is on the back of the tongue or on the floor of the mouth under the back of the tongue.

Please call the office of Drs. Johnson and Risbrudt for an oral cancer screening at 949-493-9311.

The Warning Signs of Oral Cancer

Early detection and treatment is the number one way to prevent death or recurrence in cancer cases -- all cancer cases. The 5-year survival rate of oral cancer, for example, is more than 80% when it's detected before metastasizing. Afterward, it drops to less than 50%. Fortunately, while oral cancer doesn't cause pain in most cases, there are other warning signs that you can detect if you're paying attention.

• Tissue changes -- including texture, color, and heat sensitivity -- within the mouth and gums.
• Lesions of red, white, or mixed red and white, especially those lasting more than two weeks. Red lesions are the most likely to become cancerous, but any long-lasting lesion can trigger a tumor.
• A lump or thickening of the soft oral tissue in the back of the throat.
• Soreness or the feeling that something is caught in your throat.
• Difficulty chewing or swallowing or difficulty moving the jaw or tongue.
• Numbness of the tongue or back of the throat.
• Any open wound in the mouth that doesn't heal within two weeks.
• Swelling of the jaw or pressure under the jawbone.
• Ear pain or constant need to 'pop' your ears.

None of these by themselves indicate that you have oral cancer, but they indicate that you may need a checkup. The majority of oral cancer cases involve one or more of these symptoms in conjunction with one or more of these risk factors:

• Smoking or chewing tobacco.
• Heavy alcohol drinking.
• A poor diet, particularly one lacking in raw fruits and vegetables.
• Lack of exercise.
• Old age (60+ years of age.)
• HPV of the throat.

If you belong to one or more of these categories and you have any of the symptoms above, call our office today and schedule an oral cancer screening for yourself. Don't hesitate -- if it is cancer, time is absolutely of the essence!

Don't Blush: Oral Sex and Oral Cancer

It's a bit of a tender subject, but one that needs discussing; oral sex. For decades, the practice of oral sex has been on the rise, with many people -- especially teenagers -- considering it 'safer' than 'normal' sexual intercourse. It's certainly less likely to result in an unwanted pregnancy, but scientists are discovering a link between oral sex and oral cancer later in life.

The link, some scientists theorize, is due to the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). HPV lives in the genital area of both men and women, and is known to cause cervical cancer in women (leading to the development of Gardasil and other immunizations against HPV). It turns out that during oral sex, HPV can take up residence in the mouth, where it lives for decades, eventually resulting in some form of oral cancer, most often in the tonsils or the base of the tongue.

How can you limit your risk of oral cancer due to HPV? Fortunately, the vaccines that work against HPV are starting to become available for men as well. As of this writing, only Gardasil is actually on the market for men, but other brands are following suit quickly. If you're under the age of 26, you can get the vaccine injection and dramatically reduce your risk.

Mount Sinai Medical Center came up with an excellent infographic that says it all:

If you see yourself somewhere in that chart above, feel free to ask us for an oral cancer checkup. We'd rather our patients be safe than find out too late that they need massive surgery to remove a deeply embedded tumor we could have found years earlier. 

Let's Talk About Oral Cancer

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.