National Mouth Cancer Campaign To Launch This Week
A national campaign to raise awareness of mouth cancer will launch this week. The campaign, which is designed to educate people about the deadly disease, could save up to 30,000 lives.
Mouth Cancer Awareness Month will run throughout November; the campaign is run by the British Dental Health Foundation with the support of numerous dental and public health organisations and dental practices across the country. The campaign will highlight the causes and risk factors of the disease and educate the public about the warning signs and symptoms they should be looking out for.
Mouth cancer is becoming more common in the UK; more than 5,000 new cases are diagnosed every year and experts predict that the disease could affect around 60,000 people and kill around half of those diagnosed over the course of the next decade. The survival rate for mouth cancer is only around 50 per cent and there has been little change over the last few years due to the fact that most cases are not diagnosed early; this is because public awareness of the disease is low and many patients avoid regular check-ups with their dentist.
One of the main aims of the campaign is to encourage people to attend regular dental checks and screening tests so that dentists can detect any warning signs as early as possible; early detection can improve survival rates by up to 90 per cent.
Figures show that mouth cancer killed more people than road traffic accidents last year and chief executive of the BDHF, Dr Nigel Carter OBE, said that people must take notice of the facts and take action against mouth cancer. The major risk factors for the disease are smoking, drinking and exposure to the HPV (human papilloma virus); there is also evidence to suggest that a poor diet can increase the risk of oral cancer.
Dr Carter hopes that the campaign will encourage people to visit their dentist on a regular basis and to be aware of the symptoms, which include ulcers that take a long time to heal, lumps in the mouth or throat and red or white patches in the mouth.
Information about mouth cancer and the BDHF’s campaign is available at www.mouthcancer.org.
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