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How Your Dentist Can Help Detect Oral Cancer Early

Routine dental check-ups do more than keep your teeth clean—they are vital for early detection of oral cancer. Learn about the risk factors, symptoms to watch for, and how regular visits to your dentist could save your life by catching oral cancer early when treatment is most effective.

Seeing your dental professional for routine check-up’s and cleanings has an added bonus! Dental professionals have an important role in screening for oral cancer. Intraoral and extraoral tactile and visual examinations are the basis of screening.

Risk factors for oral lesions include:

  • Alcohol use
  • Tobacco use
  • Precancerous lesions
  • Gender, genetics
  • UVA (lip cancer)
  • HPV
  • Improper nutrition
  • Increased BMI

What to look out for:

  • Red or white patches or sores that don’t go away in a few weeks
  • A lump or swelling that doesn’t go away
  • Areas of numbness
  • Pain or difficulty swallowing or chewing (oral cancer can also be painless)
  • Swollen lymph nodes that don’t go away
  • Areas that bleed with no apparent reason and that doesn’t heal

Catch it early and take care of it as the outlook for oral cancer is better when diagnosed and treated early!

It could be that none of these symptoms match and you may just have a common mouth sore, click here to read our article about these and how to combat them,

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