What is it Page

If you have an ulcer that will not heal, bleeding on your mouth, painful swelling, white and red patches, aching or loss of teeth, you may have mouth cancer.

Oral or mouth cancer is generally a tumour developing in the lining of your mouth. Where there is tissue, cancer is a possibility.

It may seem like an unusual and rare condition in the UK, yet is the sixth most common cancer in the world.

For males in the UK it is the fourth most common form of cancer, yet for women it is the 12^th most common.

What types of cancer can you get in your mouth? Click the scalpel...

The survival rate for a small cancer after five years is around 80-90%. So the outlook is reasonably positive, yet the reality is that 90% of cases are preventable.

If people were to avoid smoking, excess alcohol and maintain a healthy diet, eventually oral cancer would be one of the least common cancers around.

In the short term there are still several things we can do to improve survival, the key is not only prevention, but also early diagnosis.

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon Simon Whitley said: “I suppose a good start is getting people to attend their dentist regularly for check ups."

He adds that not being afraid to simply check can really help, and “nine out of ten times” you will not see anything serious. Yet there is no reason to risk the probability, as one in two people get cancer throughout the UK.

“They don’t just look at your teeth; they also inspect the whole of the cavity of your mouth, and feel the glands of your neck.

“What we want to do is pick up that one of ten quickly”.

When the cancer spreads to the lymph nodes or, without treatment, to the rest of your body, the chances of survival are significantly lower.

Not only does detection help prevent a fatal outcome, lifestyle choices can also have a consquential effect on your health, some of which contribute to the cancer itself.

Although inevitably a perfectly healthy person can get cancer, those who decide to start smoking and consume too much alcohol, together, have a forty times higher chance of getting cancer.

"It's partly down to bad luck, but certainly, smoking particularly I think is bad news."

Regardless of the causes, both the physical and emotional scars it leaves people with when they finally become free of cancer is substantial.

This is why the improvements within reconstructive surgery and where surgeons can get replacement tissue from, is having a positive effect on patients.

Simon describes how the use of 3D bone reconstruction and CAD Cam technology (which allows him to custom make bone plates) has helped.

The ability to revert back to normality as much as possible can boost confidence in patients after surgery which involves removing parts of the face.

"A lot of our patients have difficulty socialising because they feel very self conscious afterwards, it takes an awful lot of support."

Not only has technology improved but knowledge is being handed to dentists in order to detect the warning signs.

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