Oral Health Screening

Wellness Wednesday

April is national Oral Cancer Awareness month! Did you know that, while many think that oral cancer (think lips, tonsils, tongue, salivary glands…) is rare, around 145 people are diagnosed every day in the U.S. and someone dies from it every hour? When caught early, there is an 80-90% survival rate, but the majority of oral cancers are found in the late stages, correlating to a much-too-high death rate within five years of diagnosis. The rate of occurrence has been increasing annually for the last decade. Risk factors include tobacco and alcohol use and exposure to the HPV-16 virus, first identified in 1999.

Your routine dental exams, which include oral cancer screenings at ROC Dental Group, remain the best way to detect oral cancer in its early stages!

Go to https://oralcancerfoundation.org/ to learn more.