Although there’s a good chance you haven’t thought about oral cancer before it hit the entertainment news yesterday about Adam Yauch (Beastie Boy Has Cancer, Let’s Talk About…Salivary cancer, One Person, Every Hour of Every Day…), it’s something you should know about. To learn how to check your mouth for signs of oral cancer (lips, cheeks, gums, tongue and mouth), click on the TV screen below. The site offers two videos – one on what dentists look for when doing a cancer screening and one for you to learn how to check yourself.

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Image: iStock.com

…dies of oral cancer. This is how the website Fight Oral Cancer begins its introduction.
Oral cancers, of the tongue, gums, lips or mouth, are in the rise around the world. And the sad fact is that most oral cancers are preventable. According to the American Cancer Society ,
Most oral cancers could be prevented if people did not use tobacco or drink heavily.
Quitting tobacco and limiting alcohol use sharply reduce any risk of developing oral cancer, even after many years of use. Many oral cancers may be found early by a combination of routine screening examinations by a …read more

Mucositis, the inflammation of the mucosal cells in your mouth become red, inflammed, and very painful. It can be caused by several things, such a:

Not caring for dentures properly (wearing ill-fitting ones or not taking them out often enough
Medications that cause dry mouth and/or mucositis
Xerostomia (dry mouth)
Infections
Malnutrition
Certain illnesses
Side effect of chemotherapy or radiotherapy

We’ve discussed dry mouth here before (Many Medications Cause Dry Mouth , Painful dry mouth from medications ) but mucositis is more than just dry mouth.
According to the article, Managing Oral Mucositis in Patients With Cancer,

The VELscope is normally used to harden the material that fills cavities. It emits a bright blue light. Come on, admit you know what I’m talking about. You’ve had at least one cavity, right?
John C. Comisi, DDS, FAGD, author of a study in the September/October 2008 issue of General Dentistry, discovered that the blue light emitted from a VELscope detects cancerous oral tissue through oral fluorescence!
When the VELscope shines on healthy cells, they will appear green in color, but damaged cells will look black (that is, they aren’t producing natural fluorescence).
All this oral fluorescence stuff sounds fun, but oral cancer …read more