Velscope® …Oral Cancer Screening
At Weller Aesthetic and Implant Dental Care, we want to offer our patients the most comprehensive dental services. At each visit we are doing a visual oral cancer screening of your mouth. Although this is important, there are concerns that a visual oral screening can only see cancerous cells in later stages of development and in many cases when prognosis and treatment can not be as affective.
What Every person should know about oral cancer:
- Oral Cancer has 3 times as many victims as cervical cancer.
- One person every hour in the United States dies of Oral cancer.
- The biggest growth in oral cancer is among NON-Smokers and the main cause is HPV.
- Oral Cancer affects more men than women from the HPV virus.
- 27% of those diagnosed with oral cancer have no lifestyle risk factors- (tobacco use, chronic alcohol use of at least two ounces 3 times a week and HPV).
- The disease of Oral Cancer has not seen any decrease in occurrences over the past 40 years.
In addition to our visual screening, an annual screening test called Velscope® is provided. This is a simple test which helps us identify oral lesions at their earliest stage of development. When pre-malignant lesions or early stage oral cancer is found, treatment is simpler, less invasive and more than 90% successful.
Dr. Weller believes that the key to reducing the devastating impact of oral cancer is early detection. Better screening saves lives.
For more information on oral cancer visit the American Cancer society at www.cancer.org.