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Oral Cancer Screening Is a Critical Part of Your Checkup

Faris Kirmani • Aug 29, 2019

We do many important things at your semi-annual checkup. We will inspect your teeth for cavities, and check for gum disease. And we’ll do the very important professional cleaning, where we remove hard mineral deposits that you can’t remove at home.

But perhaps the most important things we do at your checkup is an oral cancer screening. It’s one thing that can literally save your life.

The Importance of Oral Cancer Screening

Oral cancer screening gives us the chance to detect your cancer early, before you might notice symptoms, and before the cancer begins to spread throughout your body. This can dramatically increase the odds that your cancer can be treated successfully. If detected early, oral cancers have a five-year survival rate of over 83%. On the other hand, if they’re detected late, the survival rate drops to around 50%.

That’s a big difference, and we want every one of our patients to have a better chance of spending more years with their loved ones.

Who Is at Risk for Oral Cancer?

It’s important to understand that the risk profile of oral cancer is changing. While we’re listing some of the common risk factors for oral cancer, more and more people are being diagnosed without any traditional risk factors. However, your risk of oral cancer is higher if you:

Are a man
Smoke
Drink alcohol to excess
Have a family history of mouth cancer
Have gum disease
Chew areca (betel) nut
Have the human papillomavirus (HPV)
Have the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)
Get excessive sun exposure

Oral cancer is strongly associated with smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco. Excess alcohol consumption is also a powerful causative factor. Together, these two factors are traditionally associated with about 90% of cancer diagnoses.
It’s also worth noting that the Sydney area has been linked with unusually high oral cancer rates.

Prevalence of Oral Cancer in Australia

In Australia, there are about 5200 new oral cancer diagnoses in Australia (including throat cancer)each year, accounting for about 3.6% of all new cancer diagnoses in the country. Of these, nearly three-quarters will be men. It is expected that there will be about 1200 related deaths. Again, these will be about three-quarters men.

Screening Is Easy

One of the benefits of oral cancer screening is that it doesn’t take very long. While we are looking at your mouth, we will take the time to look for signs of cancer. This takes just a couple minutes or so. If we see anything suspicious, we will refer you for a more formal test of your cancer. This will likely include an endoscopy and/or biopsy, but could also include an x-ray and other imaging.

Get Screened for Cancer

If you are overdue for a dental appointment, oral cancer screening is another good reason to not put your appointment off any longer. Instead, please call (02) 4501 7930 today for an appointment with a dentist at Riverlands Dental in North Richmond.

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