Attanasi, Kim. “Screening for Oral Cancer.

” Dimensions of Dental Hygiene, 4 June 2018,

https://dimensionsofdental hygiene/article/screening-for-oral-cancer/.

Oral Cancer And How It Changes Lives

Oral cancer is the eighth most common cancer in the world. It affects 300,000 people

each year. Men are at a higher chance than women at acquiring oral cancer. Smoking and tobacco

use is known as the most common factor in developing oral cancer. Any drinker who also uses

tobacco or smokes increases their risk by 30% of developing oral cancer. If they are a heavy

drinker it increases to 38%. A five year survival rate is at approximately 50% because the oral

cancer is not discovered until it is in the advanced stages. Areas where oral cancer affects the

most are in the lateral border of tongue, tonsils, oropharynx, and the floor of the mouth.

I felt as if this article affects me because it shows how easily oral cancer can be

overlooked during treatment. The thing I feel the most scared about is missing a lesion on a

patient during its starting stage, knowing that I could have spotted it and prevented the oral

cancer from growing. While reading this article I learned many new things not just about oral

cancer itself but different ways to detect oral cancer was very interesting. My favorite method of

detecting oral cancer is through vital tissue staining. Learning that you can apply it and normal

tissue will stay clear while it will only adhere to abnormal cells under a special light source is

amazing. Using information from this article benefits me as a future dental hygienist because it

shows different ways to find oral cancer and not rely on just and intraoral examination. As I

continue my career in the dental field, I would like to talk with my dentist about using the vital

tissue staining on patients every so often to increase the chances of finding an abnormality in the

oral cavity. Knowing that oral cancer typically appears in a person who smokes or uses tobacco

will help me explain to them what causes it and how it affects their mouth. I find it crazy that in
school we do an intraoral and extraoral evaluation everytime a patient sits in our chair. This

article explains that oral cancer is typically overlooked because dental offices fail to perform an

intraoral and extraoral evaluation on their patients. I feel like this should be implemented at

every treatment because it can save a person. I wish this article explained why dental offices tend

not to perform an intraoral and extraoral evaluation.