April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month and along those lines, I'd like to highlight a product to help doctors better screen for oral cancer. That product is an oral cancer screening device called BioScreen and it is manufactured and sold by one of my favorite 'better mousetrap' companies, AdDent. Dentistry is a wonderful profession. I love that it lets me solve problems as well as allowing me to know I'm helping people. Dentistry can be life changing for many people, however there are also ways that it can be life saving. One of those potentially life saving things is to be performing routine oral cancer screenings for patients on a regular basis.
Oral cancer is, as are most cancers, an insidious disease that often goes unnoticed in its early stages. Unfortunately any cancer becomes much more difficult to remove and/or cure as it progresses. The key to beating cancer, for both the doctor and the patient, is early detection.
Here are some Key Statistics about oral cancer:
- Around 60,000 new cases are diagnosed annually in the United States
- It accounts for about 13,000 deaths each year
- The 5 year survival rate is 68%
- 95% of cases occur in people over 40 with an average age of diagnosis around 60 years of age
- It used to be historically more prominent in males, at one time having a 6:1 male to female ratio. However, currently it has shifted to 2:1 male/female ratio
- While the common belief is that alcohol and tobacco use were the prime risk factors, currently it is also linked with HPV 16 infections (which cause cancer in the tonsils and the base of the tongue). That is the same virus that causes cervical cancer in women
- There has been a 49% increase in cases in the last 10 years
Those are sobering statistics and they are why oral cancer screening is critical for saving lives.
One of the best ways to prevent oral cancers is to inoculate young people with the HPV vaccine (Gardasil). Originally this was used for prevention of cervical cancer in women, but as more has become known about HPV, the vaccine has also been given to young men as the first step in helping to prevent oral cancers. The benefits for helping to prevent oral cancer is shared by both genders. Gardasil 9 protects against nine types of HPV: 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58. Oral cancers have been linked to HPV 16.
The other critical piece of helping to prevent the impact of this disease is to screen patients routinely as part of a regular dental examination. Finding oral cancer at its earliest stages makes it much easier to treat and the screenings are especially easy to do if the doctor and hygienist use a light assisted screening. Screening lights utilize a special wavelength of light that creates biofluorescence to aid detection. The
AdDent Bioscreen is a great way to provide these screenings.
I explain to patients that the light is *not* a diagnostic device. It doesn't tell me that I see cancer. It is a *screening* device. Injured tissues look different when exposed to the light. Healthy tissues look like the skin of a green apple while any injured or abnormal tissues appear dark or black. Small areas are much easier to see with a screening light.
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BioScreen uses 5 LEDs that allow the screening to be done, even in a brightly lit area. An eyepiece and viewing filters increases the contrast between healthy and abnormal tissue. The device runs on a rechargeable battery that will last for 500 charging cycles. It even has an auto shut off feature if the device is accidentally left on. It also has a low battery indicator that tells the user to charge it before the battery is fully spent.
Our patients often mention how much they appreciate the fact that we perform oral cancer screenings and I personally think they are one of the best things we can do. As specialists of the mouth, head, and neck, dental professionals are uniquely positioned to provide these screenings. By doing so, a doctor might just save a life... and that is a powerful thing to think about.
The BioScreen is currently available for a 20% discount during Oral Cancer Awareness Month. The discount code is: SCREEN20
AdDent also offers an eBook on the benefits of light assisted screening. You can download it here.
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