Oral Cancer is on the rise.

Could a five minutes exam save your life?

How many little sores or discoloured patches have you noticed in your mouth in the past few years? Most of the time you ignore them, and they simply go away. However, sometimes those lesions could be pre-cancerous or even cancer. What can make oral cancer hard to detect is most of the time they are painless. Some pre-cancer cannot be seen under normal white light and is only seen under fluorescent lighting.

Over the last four decades, the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), known to many for its role in cervical cancer, has been showing up in increasing numbers of oral cancer cases. Oral cancer’s five-year survival rate is 80% to 85%. If found late, oral cancer’s five-year survival rate is only about 30%.
The VELscope system helps dentists visualize abnormalities in the mucosal tissues of your lips, mouth and upper throat. The examination is done in less than five minutes, without involving rinses, stains or discomfort. The VELscope's blue light "excites" molecules deep within the layers of oral tissues. In turn, those moldecules emit their own light (fluorescence), in shades of green, yellow and red.

A recent 620-patient study at the University of Washington found that 69 (11.1%) of the routine dental patients examined had lesions only detected via VELscope assessment.

To book an appointment that includes an oral cancer screening with the VELscope, call us.