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 a simplified overview of carcinogenesis, and a review of cancers that affect the oral region.
Article
Cancer is a potentially lethal disease with many other consequences, especially if treated late, and is the most important area in oral healthcare (Figure 1), affecting not only the mouth, but potentially the jaws, neck, face, and distant regions. Estimates suggest that around half of all American men and one third of all American women will develop a cancer of some type during their lifetimes, mainly in older age.
The mouth cancer situation is worsening with an increase in the disease, and it is widely recognized and accepted that there is an urgent need for the rapid development of better:
With increasing understanding of the molecular pathology of cancer, it is anticipated that the development of molecular profiling will aid early diagnosis of lesions likely to transform to malignancy, help the development of new targeted therapies and hopefully thereby to reduce treatment adverse effects.
The word tumour in Latin means a swelling but a tumour or swelling is not always a cancer. Some tumours may be caused by inflammation, infections, cysts or fluid-filled lesions or be due to new growths (neoplasms). There are several causes of non-cancerous (benign) neoplasms in the mouth and oropharynx. Benign neoplasms do not invade other organs or spread to other parts of the body, although they can grow to a large size and start to press on surrounding organs and tissues and cause ill-effects. In contrast, those neoplasms that are capable of invading and spreading are referred to as malignant tumours or malignant neoplasms or ‘cancer’ – they are autonomous and have the capacity to grow rapidly and to metastasize or spread to other tissues.
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