When discussing prevention, this is generally broken into three levels: Primary prevention, secondary prevention, and tertiary prevention. All of these are important and should be addressed when one wants to fight the possibility of having oral cancer.
Primary Prevention
Primary prevention involves eliminating the risk factors that can cause the disease and establishing healthy habits. This means that any specific habits that are related to the disease, including smoking and alcohol abuse, need to be stopped. In order to prevent yourself from receiving oral cancer, in this stage of prevention, you should:
- Eliminate smoking and / or minimize alcohol consumption.
- Removing irritants unfitting dentures, defective fillings.
- Fruit and vegetable consumption decreases by 10% the risk of oral cancer.
- Practice good oral hygiene.
- Treat of injuries or dental problems.
Secondary Prevention
Secondary prevention involves detecting precancerous lesions and the diagnosis of the disease at the earliest stage. You can ask your dentist to make a screening of your mouth if you are worried about oral cancer. Other examples of this are:
- The opportunistic screening performed by the dentist remains the primary tool capable of identifying early oral cancer cases.
- The annual visit to the dentist is an important part of secondary prevention.
- The oral cancer diagnosis is established by examination of the oral mucosa, mouth, neck palpation and complete medical history. If any suspicious lesions are detected they may need additional testing to determine the exact diagnosis.
Tertiary Prevention
The tertiary prevention aims to prevent recurrences or new primary cancers and reduce morbidity therapeutic. The dentist should be involved in the prevention and management of the treatment, including the extractions prior to radiotherapy, diagnosis and treatment of oral infections. It is very important for patients to understand the importance of following treatments suggested by their dentist or general doctor.
We hope the above provides insight into ways people can avoid oral cancer.