Oral Cancer Screening

Regular dental checkups are important to catch issues with your teeth and gums, but there are also other oral health issues that need to be monitored. Oral cancers are responsible for over nine thousand deaths each year in the United States, but this type of cancer is treatable at the earlier stages. At Curtis Family Dentistry, we offer oral screenings, as a general dentistry service, that can be performed with your regular checkups to help you protect your oral and overall health. Oral cancer often occurs without symptoms and is not diagnosed until the later stages when it is the deadliest. However, there are symptoms that can alert you to possible early stage oral cancer. Some of these include:

• Lumps inside your mouth or throat
• Sores on your gums or mouth tissues that do not heal
• White or red spots inside your mouth
• Difficulty swallowing, chewing or speaking
• Raised rough patches inside the mouth

The problem with these early symptoms, if they exist, is that they can mimic other common, benign oral issues. A cancerous lesion can look like a common cold sore. It is the sores or changes that do not heal or go away that should be checked out by a dentist or doctor.

Identify Mouth Cancer Early

At Curtis Family Dentistry, Dr. Curtis uses special equipment to help identify oral cancer at the earliest stages. Often there are tiny changes in the mouth tissues that may not be noticeable to the naked eye but can be detected by our screening apparatus. While no one wants to learn they have any form of cancer, catching it in the earliest stages is the best possible scenario, especially with oral cancer. We care about your health and well-being at Curtis Family Dentistry. Contact us today to schedule your next checkup and cleaning and make sure to ask about our oral cancer screenings. This procedure only takes a few minutes and is non-invasive. It can help protect your health and give you a fighting chance to catch oral cancer at the earliest, most treatable stage.