Oral Cancer - Diagnosis & Treatment

Good Evening Everybody! Today, 27 July, is declared as an oral cancer day. So, it is mandatory, I talk a little bit about oral cancer or some cancers. So, let's discuss about oral cancer.

How does oral cancer present or what is it actually? An oral cancer is an abnormal growth which presents anywhere from lip to the tongue which may cause a gingiva or the oral cavity inside anywhere. How can you find that you have this problem? If you find a small growth anywhere like ulcer and swelling for let's say for 3 weeks , if you have difficulty in swallowing or change in voice or if you have difficulty in speaking, you must get worried about it and visit your nearest doctor to show what is it because we cannot take a chance.

Moreover, if you a history of smoking, tobacco chewing or if you have any HPV infections, these all are the risk factors which we have to consider. Once you reach your doctor, we have to see exactly what is it. We have to investigate that. What do we need to do? We need to do a small biopsy of that region so that we can have the exact knowledge of what is the disease all about - inflammatory or cancerous .

If it is an inflammatory disease, medicines can help. It can also lead to cancerous growth so that if cancer comes on biopsy, we need further investigation like CTO or MRI to look into the extent of the disease. So what we need to do for the treatment ? Treatment can be surgical or it has to be radio or chemotherapy along with the other modalities depending upon your stage. The earlier we detect your region, the survival is better. And if one person survives better, the family survives better. So, prevention is always better than cure.

How can you prevent these cancers? We all know that smoking is injuries to health. Just quit smoking. If you are an alcoholic, quit alcohol or take in low and moderate amount. Tobacco consumptions may be harmful. Avoid sun exposures and direct exposures to the areas like lips where again the regions can harm and can be cancerous. So, if we can help ourselves or anybody else who suffering from such a disease or anybody who can be prevented, so it will be good. Thank You!