Swords Orthodontics is one of many dental practices all over Ireland that is offering FREE oral cancer screening on Wednesday September 18th 2013, which is national Mouth Cancer Awareness Day, and this is the first of a few articles about this disease.
Although it's not a widely discussed illness, the mouth is a relatively common area for cancer to occur. If you go to the cinema or watch TV, you might see an advert to get screened for cervical cancer. The public awareness for mouth cancer is a lot less, so I am going to be writing a series of blog posts about the disease, and what we - dentists and patients - can do to beat it.
How common is mouth cancer?
Cervical cancer accounts for about 2% of all cancers in women (about 1 in 50 of all cancers diagnosed in women will be cervical cancer). Mouth cancer also accounts for about 2% of all cancers in women (about 1 in 50 of all cancers diagnosed will be mouth cancer), but it also accounts for the same percentage in men, and when you add the two together, it's one of the 20 most common areas for cancer to occur.
Indeed, it's more common than brain cancer, myeloma or liver cancer.
In fact, it's more common than cervical cancer and thyroid cancer combined.
(These figures are for the UK, I don't have Irish figures handy as I'm writing, but you can expect them to be roughly similar. However, on a world wide basis, Mouth Cancer is the sixth most common cancer because it is very common in some large population countries like India and Pakistan.)
| The 20 Most Common Cancers in 2010 | ||||
| Number of New Cases, UK | ||||
| Cancer Site | Male | Female | Persons | |
| Breast (C50) | 397 | 49564 | 49961 | |
| Lung (C33-C34) | 23175 | 18851 | 42026 | |
| Prostate (C61) | 40975 | 40975 | ||
| Bowel (C18-C20) | 22834 | 17861 | 40695 | |
| Malignant Melanoma (C43) | 6201 | 6617 | 12818 | |
| Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (C82-C85) | 6538 | 5642 | 12180 | |
| Bladder (C67) | 7416 | 2908 | 10324 | |
| Kidney (C64-C66,C68) | 5906 | 3733 | 9639 | |
| Oesophagus (C15) | 5637 | 2840 | 8477 | |
| Pancreas (C25) | 4189 | 4274 | 8463 | |
| Uterus (C54-C55) | 8288 | 8288 | ||
| Leukaemia (C91-C95) | 4816 | 3441 | 8257 | |
| Stomach (C16) | 4641 | 2625 | 7266 | |
| Ovary (C56-C57) | 7011 | 7011 | ||
| Oral (C00-C06,C09-C10,C12-C14) | 4307 | 2232 | 6539 | |
| Brain and Central Nervous System, Invasive (C70-C72) | 2831 | 2086 | 4917 | |
| Myeloma (C90) | 2570 | 2102 | 4672 | |
| Liver (C22) | 2672 | 1569 | 4241 | |
| Cervix (C53) | 0 | 2851 | 2851 | |
| Thyroid (C73) | 748 | 1906 | 2654 | |
| Other Sites* | 18799 | 16180 | 34979 | |
| All Cancers Excluding Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (C00-C97 Excl. C44) | 164652 | 162581 | 327233 | |
| *3% of all male and female cancer cases are registered without specification of the primary site | ||||
Source - Cancer Research UK
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info August 2013
Mouth cancer - getting better or worse?
Another aspect of the size of the problem is that oral cancer is on the increase.
Some cancers are less common than they were, and that's great news. I am using UK figures here, but they just don't see as much stomach cancer as they used to ten years ago, and for men, lung cancer and bladder cancer are less common than they were (although unfortunately lung cancer is on the increase for cancers in women). But mouth cancer is on the rise in men and women - about a 25%-30% increase overall. Compared to other cancers, it's the one that shows the third biggest increase.
The chart at the bottom compares the incidences in cancer for men in a three year period 1999-2001 with the incidences in a three year period 2008-2010 (about the start of the last decade to the end of it).
In a future article, I'll explain some more of the aspects of mouth cancer.
| Percentage Change in European Age-Standardised Incidence Rates per 100,000 Population, Males, UK | |||
| Incidence Rates per 100,000 | |||
| Cancer Site | 1999 - 2001 | 2008 - 2010 | Percentage Change in Incidence Rates |
| All Cancers Excluding Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer (C00-C97 Excl. C44) | 419 | 430.1 | 2.6 |
| Bladder (C67) | 24.2 | 18.7 | -22.8 |
| Bowel (C18-C20) | 56.6 | 58.4 | 3.1 |
| Brain and Central Nervous System, Invasive (C70-C72) | 8.6 | 8.4 | -2.9 |
| Connective Tissue (C47,C49) | 2.5 | 2.8 | 12.4 |
| Hodgkin Lymphoma (C81) | 2.9 | 3.2 | 11.1 |
| Kidney (C64-C66,C68) | 12.4 | 15.7 | 26.2 |
| Larynx (C32) | 6.2 | 5.3 | -14.5 |
| Leukaemia (C91-C95) | 13.4 | 13.3 | -0.3 |
| Liver (C22) | 4.7 | 6.8 | 44.3 |
| Lung (C33-C34) | 70.4 | 59.6 | -15.3 |
| Malignant Melanoma (C43) | 10.1 | 16.6 | 65.1 |
| Mesothelioma (C45) | 5.1 | 5.3 | 4.3 |
| Myeloma (C90) | 6.1 | 6.9 | 14.2 |
| Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (C82-C85) | 15.7 | 17.7 | 12.4 |
| Oesophagus (C15) | 13.8 | 14.7 | 7 |
| Oral (C00-C06,C09-C10,C12-C14) | 9.6 | 12.1 | 26.1 |
| Pancreas (C25) | 10.5 | 10.8 | 3.5 |
| Prostate (C61) | 86 | 104.8 | 22 |
| Stomach (C16) | 18.1 | 12.3 | -32.2 |
| Testis (C62) | 7 | 7.3 | 4.2 |
| Prepared by Cancer Research UK | ||||
| Original data sources: | ||||
| 1. Office for National Statistics. Cancer Statistics: Registrations Series MB1. http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/search/index.html?newquery=series+mb1 | ||||
| 2. Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit. http://www.wcisu.wales.nhs.uk | ||||
| 3. Information Services Division Scotland. Cancer Information Programme. www.isdscotland.org/cancer | ||||
| 4. N. Ireland Cancer Registry. www.qub.ac.uk/nicr. |
*Invasive brain and other central nervous system tumours (C70-C72)
Source - Cancer Research UK, changes in incidence of cancers in men with comparisons between 1999-2001 and 2008-2010
http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info August 2013
