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Oral Cancer Fatal but Treatable in Early Stages

Oral cancer is not discussed to a great length like breast cancer or prostate cancer, but it is claiming a considerable amount of lives every year. A given 34,360 people contract the disease and of those 7, 550 die. This disease that is more prevalent in African Americans has a low public awareness which therefore leads to late detection. Twenty-five percent of the 30,000 Americans who get oral cancer die of the disease. If detected within the early stages or pre-cancerous stages then the illness has a great opportunity of being cured.

A measure that can be taken to prevent oral cancer is including many fruits and vegetables in your diet. Fruits and vegetables may avert the development of potentially cancerous lesions. A precaution to take if you do not want to contract oral cancer is to stay away from some of the risk factors. Risk factors that can lead to oral cancer are any consumption of tobacco in any form, drinking alcohol, and the Human Papilloma Virus. Many Asian cultures chew betel, paan, and Areca which are known to be strong risk factors.

The sure way of circumvent oral cancer is to visit your dentist regularly. At your typical dentist visit screening for oral cancer is a part of your dentist's routine. Your dentist also checks your mouth for pre-cancerous conditions. Your dentist will also check for painless, painless, white or red spot or a small mouth sore. Even though sometimes these sores can benign it is important to let your dentist examine them. To verify if the sore is pre-cancerous or not there are varying forms of procedure. The range is from mild being a brush test to as powerful as a pap smear used to detect pre-cancerous conditions.

Your dentist will be able to diagnose that you have oral cancer or may get oral cancer through your symptoms. Usually there is a skin lesion, bump, or ulcer in your mouth. It can be pale or dark but it is a discoloration. It can also be a white patch (leukoplakia) or a red patch (erythroplakia) on the tissues of the mouth. The sore spots commence without pain but they can develop to a burning sensation or painful when the tumor advances. Other symptoms are tongue problems, difficulty swallowing, or mouth sore that don't go away after fourteen days. Late symptoms are pain and parasthesia, which is a numbness or tingling feeling.

Oral cancer is treatable and the palliative is greatly successful if it is within early detection. Treatment usually consists of surgically removing the tumor. Depending on the gravity and size of the tumor reconstructive surgery may be needed after the excision of the tumor. Reconstructive surgery would include bone grafts to rebuild structures and surgical flaps to give an acceptable cosmetic and pragmatical result. If the tumor is too large or inoperable then radiation therapy would be necessary. Radiation therapy is used alongside dislocation of the tumor for radical treatment.

Article Source: http://www.articlemonk.com

Dexter Bedd, Dental Marketing

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