Oral Cancer Screenings
You make sure to have all your other yearly cancer screenings done, but have you been neglecting your mouth? Oral cancer strikes an estimated 34,360 Americans each year. That’s why we take oral cancer screening so seriously. Every new patient receives this screening and we recommend that you make sure to have one at least yearly.
We use the revolutionary VELscope, a hand-held device that offers our office a simple companion to visual cancer screenings. The sophisticated VELscope instrument exposes any suspicious tissue inside your mouth. The light reacts with molecules in your cells and causes them to absorb the light energy and re-emit them as a fluorescent glow. By utilizing special optical filters in the hand-piece we are able to immediately view the difference between normal and abnormal cellular activity. Healthy tissue will give a green glow and suspicious tissue has a loss of fluorescence that will cause it to appear darker. The exam is quick and painless and allows us to screen for oral cancer with much greater efficiency than ever before.
We also carefully examine your neck and under your tongue palpating for lumps or other abnormal signs. You may have a very small, but dangerous, oral spot or sore and not be aware of it. Dr. Frith is trained to pay special attention to any spot or sore that looks harmless and does not have a clear cause.