Mouth inspection reduces oral cancer deaths

A simple mouth inspection by trained healthcare workers might reduce oral cancer deaths worldwide by at least 37,000 annually.Oral cancer is a common problem among men in developing countries, and is often associated with tobacco or alcohol use. Instead of convincing people not to engage in these activities, detecting and treating the disease at an early stage might be more useful. Visual inspection of the mouth has proven to be a simple and accurate means of screening oral cancer. However, it is unclear whether a visual screening program could substantially reduce deaths from oral cancer.

To investigate, researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, assessed the effects of visual inspection screening by trained health workers or no screening in 13 regions in India. Subjects with evidence of disease on the mouth exam were referred for further evaluation and treatment as needed. There were roughly 95,000 eligible subjects in the screening and the comparison group each. A total of 205 oral cancer cases and 77 related deaths occurred in the screening group as compared to 158 cases and 87 deaths in the comparison group. Thus, screening was tied to a reduction in death rates of 21 percent, which is not significant from a statistical standpoint.

In alcohol and tobacco users, however, the survival benefit of visual screening was statistically significant. In this group, screening reduced oral cancer deaths by 34 percent with a slightly greater benefit seen among male users.The findings support the routine use of visual screening of mouth helps in the reduction of oral cancer (deaths) in the high-risk group of users of tobacco or alcohol, or both.
Visual screening for oral cancer takes just 5 minutes and is easy, effective, cheap, and can save lives.