Yes. This morning, in my email, I found to notifications about oral cancer information, but they weren’t the same old heart wrenching statistics we already know about.
Every dental professional knows that oral cancer screening is an essential part of a thorough dental checkup. The highly publicized statistics about oral cancer frequency, mortality rate, and cure rate are common knowledge in the field. A recent Web Exclusive article titled “Part 1: The importance of oral cancer screenings” appeared on www.DentalProductsReport.com this month. Written by Eileen Morrissey, a dental hygienist, the text supports the importance of oral cancer screenings and provides a good example of how a dentist can adopt new oral cancer screening technology.
Morrissey provides this advice: “If you are rusty and would benefit from a coaching tutorial, visit the following website. www.nidcr.nih.gov, or call 301-402-7364. A short [PowerPoint] can be downloaded in said format, or as a PDF handout, with images that you can study for a memory refresher.”
The articles is a good read, and it’s open for discussion through comments.
In addition to the DPR article, NEJM recently published an article entitled “Human Papillomavirus and Survival of Patients with Oropharyngeal Cancer.” According to this article, approximately 90% of HPV-positive cancers contain HPV type 16, and another 5% have HPV type 18.”
In addition, “The majority of patients enrolled in therapeutic trials for squamous-cell carcinoma of the head and neck have oropharyngeal squamous-cell carcinoma, which in a sub-group of these patients is caused by infection with human papillomavirus (HPV). This subgroup is defined by the presence of high-risk types of HPV in tumor cells, predominantly HPV type 16.”
A corresponding editorial, entitled “Prognostic Implications of HPV in Oropharyngeal Cancer,” also shares important information. “The two classes of oropharyngeal squamous appear to have distinct causes. HPV-positive cases suggesting that HPV-positive cancer and HPV-negative cancer may each have a distinct pathogenesis.”
Related Information:
http://www.dentalproductsreport.com/articles/show/dpr1009_360_oralcancer
http://oralcancerfoundation.org
http://www.velscope.com/velscope.php
1 response so far ↓
1 Amber // Jun 28, 2010 at 1:30 am
Very interesting, thank you for the post! I had no idea HPV is being linked with oral cancer. Good references!
Leave a Comment