Avoid Oral Cancer: Visit Your Dentist in Gilbert
Did you know that your Gilbert dentist can help you to avoid serious health problems, such as oral cancer.
Call Your Gilbert Dentist to Schedule a Dental Exam | (480) 503-5467
How Serious is Oral Cancer?
How serious is oral cancer? Well, like all forms of cancer, early detection and treatment is the key to making sure that the cancer doesn’t spread or get worse.
It is crucial to schedule an appointment with your dentist in Gilbert for an oral cancer screening. According to the Oral Cancer Foundation’s webpage:
“Close to 49,750 Americans will be diagnosed with oral oropharyngeal cancer this year. It will cause over 9,750 deaths, killing roughly 1 person per hour, 24 hours per day. Of those 49,750 newly diagnosed individuals, only slightly more than half will be alive in 5 years. (Approximately 57%) This is a number which has not significantly improved in decades. (The survival number at 5 years from diagnosis was for many decades about 50%, so 57% is an improvement over the last ten years. However this is due to the increase of HPV16 caused cancers which are more vulnerable to existing treatment modalities, conferring a significant survival advantage. So a change in the etiology, not improved early discovery or treatments; which are relatively unchanged from a decade ago, are not the sole cause for improvement.) The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that of cancers which we hear about routinely such as cervical cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, laryngeal cancer, cancer of the testes, and endocrine system cancers such as thyroid. If you expand the definition of oral and oropharyngeal cancers to include cancer of the larynx, the numbers of diagnosed cases grow to approximately 54,000 individuals and 13,500 deaths per year in the U.S. alone. Historically the death rate associated with this cancer is particularly high not because it is hard to discover or diagnose, but due to the cancer being routinely discovered late in its development.” [VIEW SOURCE]
A Family Dentist is Your First Line of Defense for Your Overall Health
Everyone thinks that dental problems are just health problems connected with your mouth. But did you know that gingivitis, for example, can lead to heart disease and other forms of inflammation in the body? It can. There is a higher prevalence of heart attacks among patients who have been diagnosed with gingivitis.
People often equate the health of their mouth as something separate from the rest of their body, however, that isn’t the case. For overall health you need to start at the top of your head and work your way down. One great way to start is to schedule an appointment with a dentist in Gilbert.
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Gilbert Vista Dental Care
2451 East Baseline Road #210
Gilbert, AZ 85234
(480) 503-5467
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