Oral Cancers Are Being Diagnosed Late
- Details
- Published: Monday, 01 March 2021 18:07
- Written by Chris Tapper
- Hits: 1644
The pandemic has led to the UK experiencing a surge in oral cancers being diagnosed at a late stage.
The Times reported remarks by Matthew Garrett, the Dean of the faculty of dental surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, who said that patients were at risk of developing mouth cancer and other serious conditions of the head and neck as early signs were not picked up by dentists.
Mr Garrett, who is a consultant in restorative dentistry and became Dean of the faculty in 2020, told The Times that a reliance on patients being seen virtually or by phone during the pandemic meant that it had been difficult to pick up the ‘subtle changes to soft tissue’ that could be an indication of mouth cancer.
He said “Anecdotally, patients are now presenting later with more advanced oral cancer, which means the tumours are larger and surgery is more complicated.”
The State of Mouth Cancer UK Report 2020/2021, which was released by the Oral Health Foundation and Denplan, showed new cases of mouth cancer in the UK reached 8,772 last year. This was an increase of 58% in the last decade and by 97% compared with 20 years’ ago. The report showed 2,702 Brits lost their life to mouth cancer in 2019.
The report said the ten-year survival rate is between 18% and 57%, depending on where the cancer strikes and how early it is diagnosed.
Although nine-in-ten (86%) British adults have now heard of mouth cancer, their awareness on the signs, symptoms and risk factors is poor.
The report showed that mouth cancer referrals fell by 65% since the beginning of lockdown according to one of England’s biggest NHS Trusts. The report also showed that awareness of the major signs and symptoms for mouth cancer among members of the public are as low as 23%.
The Times reported that The British Dental Association estimates a ten million backlog of appointments caused by the shutdown in the first wave of the pandemic. It believes it will take months or even years for practices to work through this as they are on average working at a quarter of their usual capacity, because of infection control requirements.
You need to be logged in to leave comments.
Report