Spit Test Spots Oral Cancer
3/9/2006 New York, NY staff Forbes.com Researchers may be within spitting distance of a reliable, saliva-based early detection test for oral cancer. "It's nothing more than having someone spit. And 24 hours after the sample is mailed in, that information could be known to the individual -- whether you're at risk of having oral cancer," said study senior researcher Dr. David T. Wong, director of the Dental Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. His team presented its findings Thursday at the American Association for Dental Research annual meeting, in Orlando, Fla. According to the American Cancer Society, each year more than 31,000 Americans are diagnosed with some form of oral cancer, and more than 7,000 people die from the disease. Smoking and the use of smokeless tobacco products, as well as excessive drinking, are both risk factors for oral malignancies. According to Wong, early detection is key to beating oral cancer. "The later you detect it, the more dreadful the outcome," he said. "For example, someone who has what we call stage 3 disease -- there are stages one through four -- has only a 20 percent chance of survival. But if you detect that person's disease at stage one, he'll have a 90 percent chance of survival over five years." Regular, thorough oral exams by a trained professional can spot lesions early on, but "not every dentist or health-care provider does a full oral heath exam," Wong said. That's why he and other researchers are working [...]