Have you had your tongue pulled today? April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month
April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month Hello to all of my Youth Fairy Squad members! I hope my blog post finds you all healthy and doing great and if you celebrated Easter, I hope it was relaxing and joyous. April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month. At every dental exam, either myself or Joe, the hygienist, will conduct an oral cancer screening exam while we are evaluating all of your oral tissues. That funny part of the exam when I ask you to stick your tongue out at me and I grab it and move it all around is a part of that oral cancer exam. Oral cancer accounts for about 3% of all the cancers diagnosed each year in the US . Every hour, 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year, someone dies of oral or oropharyngeal cancer (cancer of the mouth and upper throat). Yet, if oral cancer is detected and treated early, treatment-related health problems are reduced and survival rates may increase. This year an estimated 54,000 new cases of oral cancer will be diagnosed. Of those individuals, 43 percent wi