Mouth Cancer

Mouth Cancer

Mouth cancer can affect any part of the mouth including lips, tongue, gums, palate, salivary glands and floor of the mouth. The most common tumours are cancer of the lip and cancer of the tongue. As with most cancers, early detection is vital to successful treatment.

Risk Factors

Well known risk factors for oral cancer are excessive alcohol consumption and tobacco use, which includes smoking cigarettes, cigars or pipe, chewing tobacco and even inhaling nasal snuff. Using wet snuff using powdered tobacco rolled into a ball and placed between the cheek and gum, is a major risk factor for oral cancer. This may be rare in the UK, but is quite common in Scandinavian countries.
Poor oral hygiene, and long term irritation from ill fitting dentures and jagged tooth surfaces are other predisposing risk factors.

Oral cancer affects twice as many men as women, affecting mainly men over the age of 40 years. This type of cancer accounts for about 5% of all cancers.

Symptoms

Most cancers inside the mouth occur along the side, or the bottom of the tongue, or on the floor of the mouth. Oral cancer tumours are usually painless at first, but are often visible or can be felt with an examining finger. Most start as a whitish patch, called leukoplakia, which eventually may cause a burning sensation in the mouth.

A growing early mouth cancer may develop into a deep ulcer or crack which may bleed, and, in it's advanced stages, becomes painful. To confirm the diagnosis, a sample of the suspect tissue is taken (a biopsy) to be examined under the microscope.

Treatment

If treated early, mouth cancer can be cured. Sadly, over half of all mouth cancers are well advanced at the time of their diagnosis. They often spread into the nearby glands (lymph nodes) of the neck, which requires far more extensive treatment. Nearly 25% of patients with mouth cancer die because of delayed diagnosis and therefore late treatment.

Best treatment involves surgical removal of the tumour. Radiation therapy is useful for larger tumours. After surgery or irradiation, speech therapy and rehabilitation programmes restoring comfort, chewing ability and more normal appearance can be extremely helpful.

Further information can be found at: CancerHelp UK: http://www.cancerhelp.ork.uk
IMPORTANT NOTICE : This content is from the Dr Chris Steele personal archive and is provided for convenience only. Information contained here may no longer agree with the most up to date medical advice. Please check with a medical professional before taking any action.

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