If it is not detected early, oral cancer can require surgical intervention, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. It can be fatal, with a general 5-year survival rate at 50% of the cases. One of the main causes for this high mortality rate is the fact that symptoms are not recognized early, which means that the success rate of the treatment is tightly linked to the early detection of the condition.
The early symptoms of oral cancer are not exactly easy to detect, which is why visits to the dentist and routine checkups by the family doctor are very important. The dentist can notice early symptoms of oral cancer. Aside from these checkups, you should go to a dentist if you notice some of the following symptoms:
-an injury on the lips, gums or inside the mouth, which easily bleeds and won’t heal
-growth or thickening of the mouth’s mucous membranes, which you can feel with your tongue
-decreased sensitivity or a feeling of numbness inside the oral cavity
-white or reddish spots on the gums, tongue or mucous membrane
-difficulty when chewing or swallowing food
-lesions or inexplicable pain in the oral cavity, or the feeling that you have something in your throat, but without seeing an exact cause for this feeling
-inflammation of the jaw, which does not allow you to fix dentures into place
-changes in the voice
If you are not smoking or chewing tobacco, don’t start. Tobacco constitutes the cause for 80-90% cases of oral cancer. The direct correlation between smoking, lung cancer and heart diseases is a confirmed fact. Smoking also damages general health, leading to a decrease in immunity and slower recovery after an injury or after surgical intervention. In young adults, smoking stops growth and causes other development difficulties. Many smokers notice their smell and taste senses are altered, and they also develop unpleasant breath and spots on the teeth.
Each cigarette you light represents an additional risk for your oral health. Smoking cigarettes, pipes or cigars leads to significantly higher chances of cancer in the larynx, mouth, throat or esophagi. Since many people do not realize or simply ignore the early symptoms of oral cancer, the illness spreads throughout the body before being detected.
Chronic consumption of chewing tobacco increases the risk of oral cancer by 50%. The best thing you could do is avoid smoking cigarettes, cigars and pipe or chewing tobacco. If you give up smoking, even after many years, the risk of oral cancer is drastically reduced. Also, the chronic consumption of alcohol and alcohol abuse increases the risk of cancer, while the alcohol-tobacco combination is even more dangerous.