Oral Cancer Screenings – Spring Lake, NJ
Early Detection Can Save Your Life
The facts about oral cancer are sobering. Not only will thousands of patients receive a diagnosis this year, but only about 57% of those patients will be alive in five years. Oral cancer claims roughly one life every hour of every day. Why does oral cancer claim so many lives? Because all too often it isn’t diagnosed until it’s already in an advanced stage of development. At this point, successfully treating oral cancer is difficult. That's why we recommend regular oral cancer screenings in our Spring Lake, NJ dental office.
Why Choose Dooley Dental for Oral Cancer Screenings?
- State-of-the-Art VELscope Diagnoses
- A Compassionate, Smart Dental Team
- Dentist That Looks Out for Whole Person
Oral Cancer
Risk Factors
While it’s difficult to say why oral cancer develops, certain behaviors come with an increased risk. These behaviors include smoking and other forms of tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, constant exposure to sunlight, dentures that don’t fit properly, and cheek or lip biting. Point Pleasant residents and others who recognize any of these as a part of their own life should be extra vigilant about receiving a routine oral cancer screening.
The truth is everyone should receive routine oral cancer screenings. While the behaviors listed above increase a patient’s odds of developing oral cancer, not everyone who is diagnosed with it engages in them. In fact, a quarter of all cases actually occurs in patients who don’t fit the profile of an oral cancer patient. Many of these cases, in both women and men, have been linked with HPV.
Diagnosing Cancer Early with VELscope
At Dooley Dental, we want to reverse the trend of patients receiving a late diagnosis of oral cancer. That’s why we’ve invested in VELscope. This visualization tool uses a light to view potentially problematic parts of your mouth before anything is visible with the naked eye alone. As a result, we don’t have to wait to make a diagnosis or begin treatment. Instead, we can begin the process while the disease is still at a very early stage, increasing chances of making a full recovery.
