Source: Dentistry.co.uk
Author: Staff

The public are oblivious to signs of mouth cancer.

A poll, commissioned to coincide with November’s Mouth Cancer Action Month, reveals that one person in 10 claimed not to have even heard of the condition.

Despite the much-publicised news of the battle actor Michael Douglas is currently having with advanced throat cancer, the survey, conducted by the British Dental Health Foundation and Denplan. oll reveals an alarming lack of awareness about the causes and symptoms of one of the UK’s fastest growing cancers.

The poll of more than 1,000 people suggests that there is only limited knowledge and understanding of this potentially deadly disease.

Chief executive of the Foundation, Dr Nigel Carter, says: “After recent high profile coverage of the Michael Douglas case it is staggering to see that some people still have no awareness at all of the condition.

‘The public need to be aware of the risk factors and whether they are in a high risk group and how they can self-examine or who they can turn to if they’re concerned.’

The results of the survey reveal that it is the older members of the public who are most aware of mouth cancer, with more than 96% of those interviewed saying that they had heard of it.

Dr Carter adds: ‘This sounds good as the majority of cases occur in the over 50s but now more young people are being diagnosed with mouth cancer it is important that everyone is aware of the problem. The survey also shows that women are more aware of the disease than men – yet men are twice as likely as women to suffer with mouth cancer.’

The results of the survey show that more than a third of the public questioned dramatically underestimated the prevalence of the disease by answering that mouth cancer was responsible for one death every day in the UK.

In fact, mouth cancer causes a death in the UK every five hours and is now responsible for more deaths than cervical and testicular cancer combined.

Dr Carter says: ‘Rates of mouth cancer have increased by over 40% over the last decade and this year’s figures from Globecan show a worrying 10% increase over last year’s figures to very nearly 6,000 new cases a year.

‘Despite this, there is not always a great deal of publicity surrounding it, so people just do not realise how common and dangerous it is which is why we run Mouth Cancer Action Month every November in the UK.’