Download Oral Cancer Prevention

Oral Cancer Prevention
Dr shabeel pn
What is oral cancer?
• This is cancer that occurs in the oral cavity and
part of the throat at the back of the mouth.
This includes:
• Lips
• Hard and soft palate & uvula
• Salivary glands
• Tongue
• Oropharynx
• Floor of the mouth
• Most oral cancer begins in the floor of the
mouth and tongue
• Can spread to other parts of the body
What is cancer?
• Normally cells they divide to form new cells
and they grow, when they get old they die and
new cells replace them.
• When these processes does not happen the
way they suppose to be happening then extra
cells will be form and they will form a mass,
and this is call cancer
The cause of oral cancer is not
fully understood but it has shown
that people developing oral
cancer, they have been exposed
to certain risk factors
Risk factors
• Tobacco
this includes smoking and chewing of tobacco.
The risk is even higher for people that and
drink alcohol at the same time.
• Alcohol
this is also another risk factor for oral cancer
the more alcohol you consume the more are
the chances of getting oral cancer. But also
even higher if also smoke
• tobacco
• Alcohol
• Sun
cancer of the lips is caused by sun
exposure
• History of any head and neck cancer
people with history of having head and
neck cancer are more at risk than those
that does not have a history of this
Burden of the disease
• According to the statistics from the Office for
national Statistics, 1998 it shows that there is
more than 3,000 new cases every year in the
United Kingdom and 60% of these patients
will die from this.
(Office for National statistics, 1998)
Prevention
Two parts
• Primary prevention
• Secondary prevention
Primary prevention
• This focuses on the prevention of these risk
factors
• Since we all know about these risk factors, then
preventing it can cause a decreased in the
number of new cases in every year
• A study that was done in Sri Lanka in 1984
suggested that using primary health care workers
to educate the adults might be five times more
cost effective than providing high tech. treatment
(Cancer Research Campaign, 1993)
• So it is important to educate people about
oral cancer and its risk factors
• Here we target young children when they
are still growing up by educating them not
to smoke and drink alcohol and not to
follow the bad habits of taking them
• Also when advising them about this we
should also tell them how these factors
contribute to oral cancer
• A study was done and it found no evidence
of any beneficial effects from mass media
programmes
(Kay and Locker, 1998)
• So they came up with the idea that
giving a chair-side oral health promotion
advise was more effective
• So in order for people to avoid these risk
factors it is very important that their
knowledge about oral cancer is enough
in order for them to change their
lifestyle
• But there was a research that was done
and it suggests that the current levels of
public awareness about oral cancer are
disappointingly low
• Smoking
• Using of sunscreen
Secondary prevention
• This focus more on the early detection of the
cancer before it reaches the stage where no
help can be done
• So early detection can help in the
improvement of the quality of treatment and
the prognosis of the cancer
• This includes oral cancer screening
• There are three types of screening
programmes that have been used in recent
years
1. Invitational programmes where people
on some official list are contacted
2. Opportunistic programmes where
individuals attending a dental or
medical practice for a reasons
unrelated to oral cancer are invited to
have a mucosal examination
3. Case finding programmes where house
to house calls are made in order to
contact and examine eligible residents
in a specific locality
• A study was done and it shows that
opportunistic screening for oral cancer
and pre-cancer in general dental and
medical practices of patients aged 3040yrs is likely to be the most effective
screening strategy.
(Speight et al, 1995; 2006)
• This was because many dental
practitioners they use oral mucosal
examination as part of the patient’s
routine check-up.
• Also another important factor is
Conclusion
• Oral cancer can be prevented through public
health promotion in educating them about
oral cancer and that they fully understand it.
• Screening plays an important role in
preventing oral cancer
• If oral cancer can be detected in an early stage
than the chances of healing and improvement
is high
reference
• Bhatti et al. Public Knowledge and
attitudes on oral cancer: a pilot
investigation. J Inst Health Educ 1995;
32: 112-117
• Cancer Research Campaign. Oral Cancer
Factsheets 14.1- 14.5. London: CRC,
1993
• Kay E, Locker D. A systematic review of
the effectiveness of health promotion
aimed at improving oral health.
• Speight et al. The cost effectiveness of
screening for oral cancer in primary care.
Health Technol Assess 2006;10:i-x,1-144
• www.cancernet.nci.nih.gov/pdf/WYNTK/WTN
TK_oral.pdf
• Warnakulasuriya et al. An alarming lack of
public awareness towards oral cancer. Br Dent
J 1999; 15:331-334