27
April
2010
|
14:35 PM
America/New_York
Oral Cancer Facts
Since this is Oral Cancer Awareness month, I wanted to start and end the month with some thoughts on this collection of cancers. I was recently asked to talk about oral cancer on one of our local television stations and so I contacted the Oral Cancer Foundation for some information. I talked with their Director who is an oral cancer survivor of 11 years. He was a pleasant person to speak with and had lots of valuable information to share. Among his statistics:
Always feel free to talk to your dentist about what to watch for and ways to prevent oral cancer.
- 110 people every day are diagnosed with an oral cancer
- 1 person dies every hour of every day from oral cancer
- Anecdotally, on the oral cancer foundation survivor list, about 1/3 are under 30 years of age
- There seems to be a correlation with the HPV virus and oral cancers
- In 2007 oral cancers rose 11%
- Survival rate is good if found early, but overall about a 55% survival after 5 years
Always feel free to talk to your dentist about what to watch for and ways to prevent oral cancer.