Dental charity raises awareness of common causes of oral cancer
A dental charity is raising awareness of the leading causes of oral cancer in a bid to reduce the prevalence of the disease and encourage the public to make healthy lifestyle choices.
The Oral Health Foundation is raising awareness of the ‘big three’ causes of mouth cancer to educate people about the risk factors and encourage them to take steps to reduce personal risk.
The most common causes include smoking, drinking heavily and exposure to the human papilloma virus (HPV).
Statistics indicate that the number of cases of oral cancer in the UK has doubled in the last 0 years, yet only 15% of adults are aware of the three main risk factors.
A lack of awareness of the causes and symptoms means that most cases are currently diagnosed at a more advanced stage when treatment is less likely to be successful. If mouth cancer is diagnosed early, survival chances can be up to 90% higher.
More than 50% of oral cancer cases in the UK are associated with lifestyle factors, including smoking and drinking alcohol. Smoking increases the risk of developing mouth cancer ten-fold and case numbers among heavy drinkers are up to three times higher than non-drinkers.
People who drink between 10 and 42 units of alcohol per week could be increasing their risk by up to 80%. Smoking and drinking triples the risk of oral cancer.
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