SheKnows Interviews Me About Oral Cancer and HPV

I’ve become pretty passionate about the increase in oral cancer in young women and the reasons why young women should get tested for this deadly cancer when they visit their dentist.

According to the Oral Cancer Foundation, each day 100 individuals are diagnosed with oral cancer — and that’s just in the US!

In addition, one person dies of oral cancer every hour of every day.

States the Oral Cancer Foundation:

When found early, oral cancers have an 80 to 90 % survival rate. Unfortunately at this time, the majority are found as late stage cancers, and this accounts for the very high death rate of about 45% at five years from diagnosis, and high treatment related morbidity in survivors.

Late stage diagnosis is not occurring because these cancers are hard to discover, it is because of a lack of public awareness coupled with the lack of a national program for opportunistic screenings which would yield early discovery by medical and dental professionals.

As an FYI, I have alerted the local media to this story but not one has followed up with me. Very disconcerting — and frightening. You would think that informing consumers about oral cancer would be a public service announcement.

Which is why I’m very happy that SheKnows, a Website for women, interviewed me about this topic. Thank you, Michele!