Oral Cancer Screening

A dentist or doctor will examine you to check for indications of cancer or precancerous disorders in your mouth. This is known as oral cancer screening.

Oral cancer screening aims to detect mouth cancer at an early stage when there is a better possibility of a cure. The majority of dentists check your mouth during a standard dental visit to check for oral cancer. To help them find areas of abnormal cells in your mouth, certain dentists may perform extra testing.

How Oral Cancer Screening is done?

• Toluidine blue stain: A method of coating lesions in the mouth with a blue dye. Darker stained areas are more likely to be or develop cancerous.
• Fluorescence staining is a treatment that uses a specific light to examine lesions in the mouth. When the patient uses a fluorescent mouth rinse, normal and pathological tissue seem different under the light.
• Exfoliative cytology is a method of collecting cells from the mouth cavity. To gently scrape cells from the lips, tongue, or mouth, a piece of cotton, a brush, or a little wooden stick is employed. A microscope is used to examine the cells to see if they are abnormal.
• Brush biopsy: Cell removal with a brush created to collect cells from all levels of a lesion. A microscope is used to examine the cells to see if they are abnormal.

How to Avoid Mouth Cancer

There are key lifestyle choices that may help reduce the risk of developing oral cancer, even though there is no way to totally prevent it.

• Avoid using tobacco at all costs, and if you already do, stop as soon as you can.
• If you choose to drink alcohol, do it in moderation – up to one drink per day for women of all ages and males over the age of 65, and up to two drinks per day for men 65 and younger.
• Avoid excessive sun exposure and protect your lips from the sun whenever you’re outside by using a sunscreen cream and/or wearing a broad-brimmed hat that covers your face.