Source: Aspen Dental April is Oral Cancer Awareness Month. According to Brian Hill, founder and executive director of the Oral Cancer Foundation, as many as 40,000 people in the United States will be told they have oral or pharyngeal cancer in 2012. Some of them may be sitting in your dental chair today. With one person dying of oral cancer every hour of every day, and more than 50% of those diagnosed not living more than 5 years, this is a reminder to screen every patient yourself, and encourage your dental hygiene staff to do the same. The Statistics About 100 people are diagnosed with oral cancer every day in the United States. Few people are aware that the death rate for oral cancer is higher than for many other types of cancers, which is because oral cancer often is not discovered until it has reached later stages. This is particularly true for human papilloma virus number 16 (HPV16)-related oral cancer, which occurs most frequently in the posterior areas of the mouth—at the base of the tongue, around the tonsils, and in the oropharynx—where it’s harder to spot without a very thorough exam. To further complicate things, HPV16-related cancer does not always present the tell-tale physical characteristics, including lesions, that are easily distinguished from healthy oral tissues. This is not good news, because HPV16 has reached epidemic levels in the United States: of the 37,000 incidences of oral cancer, about 20,000 (up to 60%) can be linked to HPV, according [...]