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A MEDLINE search early in 2015 revealed more than 250,000 papers on head and neck cancer; over 100,000 on oral cancer; and over 60,000 on mouth cancer. Not all publications contain robust evidence. We endeavour to encapsulate the most important of the latest information and advances now employed in practice, in a form comprehensible to healthcare workers, patients and their carers. This series offers the primary care dental team in particular, an overview of the aetiopathogenesis, prevention, diagnosis and multidisciplinary care of mouth cancer, the functional and psychosocial implications, and minimization of the impact on the quality of life of patient and family.
Clinical Relevance: This article offers the dental team an overview of cancer prevention.
Article
There is a huge effort searching for new and improved ways to prevent cancer, not only to avert suffering of patients and their families but also to control economic costs. Mouth cancer is rarely familial, when it may be genetic or environmental or due to risk factor exposure (eg diet or tobacco smoke exposure) but, for example, can be seen in Fanconi anaemia. Previous articles have discussed these risk factors (Articles 3, 4, 5). Mouth cancer is certainly related to modifiable risk factor (eg tobacco, alcohol) exposure.
In general, prevention includes activities – ‘interventions’ – aimed at reducing these risks. These are usually grouped into primary, secondary and tertiary prevention and can be carried out by all members of the clinical healthcare team and others such as health trainers.
The goal of primary prevention is to protect healthy people from developing cancer. Primary prevention is by far the most ideal approach; strategies include education of the public, high-risk individuals and healthcare practitioners and, for example:
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