ACCORDING TO THE ORAL CANCER FOUNDATION nearly 37,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral cancer this year. It will cause over 8,000 deaths, killing approximately one person per hour every day this year. It’s estimated that $3.2 billion is spent in the United States each year on treatment for head and neck cancers. One of the truly alarming things about this is that of those 37,000 newly diagnosed cases, only slightly more than half of these people will be alive in five years.
Why Is The Death Rate So High For Oral Cancer?
It all goes back to early detection—NOT because it’s hard to discover or diagnose. Many times people just don’t know about it until it has progressed to more dangerous stages. Why don’t they know?
- It can prosper without producing pain or symptoms people recognize.
- People don’t visit their dentist regularly.
- Even if they visit, their dentist just doesn’t check for it.
Another alarming fact is while survival rates for other cancers have improved over the last decades, oral cancer rates have not. The death rate is much higher than cancers which we hear about routinely including cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, laryngeal cancer, testes cancer, and endocrine system cancers such as thyroid, or skin cancer (malignant melanoma).
How The VELscope System Helps
The VELscope system allows Dr. Kevin and Jane Lilly to visualize abnormalities in the mucosal tissues of your lips, upper throat, and mouth. In two minutes, using no rinses or causing any discomfort, they can perform a simple VELscope examination and can better assess your overall oral health and catch possible problems early.
– it can be easily implemented as part of your oral exam
– it only takes 1–2 minutes
– it is completely non-invasive
– there are no rinses or dyes
– there is no pain or discomfort
The VELscope’s completely safe (and FDA approved) blue light “excites” molecules deep within the layers of oral mucosal tissues. In turn, those fluorophores emit their own light (fluorescence) in shades of green, yellow and red. The light’s proprietary filter makes fluorescence visualization possible by blocking reflected blue light, and by enhancing the contrast between normal and abnormal tissue.
Watch this short video about VELscope to learn more:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIyDOMAt3Ss&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]Make sure you are as healthy as you can possibly be. Next time you visit our office, talk to us about VELscope and oral cancer screening.
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