We care... and we can help
Our practice has purchased State-of-the-art device called the VELscope oral cancer screening system. Along with our conventional oral screening exam, which includes looking and feeling inside your mouth for lesions that maybe visible to the naked eye, we can use the VELscope to literally see beneath the surface to detect potentially dangerous growths we might have otherwise missed.
36,000 new cases of oral cancer are diagnosed each year. Oral cancer is one of the few types of cancers that haven't experienced a significantly reduced mortality rate in the past 30 years. Early detection is the key, it can mean the difference between life and death. Indeed, the five year survival rate is between 80% and 90% when oral cancer is caught early. But that rate plummets to around 30% when the condition is caught late.
Oral cancer has traditionally been associated with tobacco usage, and it's true that a majority of oral cancer vicitims smoke or use chewing tobacco, consume alcohol and are over the age of 40. But a group experiencing the highest growth rate of oral cancer does not fit the traditional "at risk" profile. More and more oral cancer cases are striking a much younger population who don't use tobacco or alcohol. The cause appears to be linked to The Human Papilloma Virus that can be contracted during sexual intercourse and especially oral sex.
