Nigel Carter discusses Mouth Cancer Action month 2022.
Mouth Cancer Action Month takes place in November and is the UK’s biggest campaign for mouth cancer awareness. Every year, the charity initiative is supported by thousands of dental professionals, who educate patients and local communities about the importance of being mouthaware. Once again, we hope to have your support.
Since the very first campaign back in the year 2000, the Oral Health Foundation has invested nearly £2 million on improving awareness and education around mouth cancer. This could not have happened without your support.
But there’s more we can do.
These numbers continue to rise while the disease claims more lives than cervical and testicular cancer combined.
The more the population knows about mouth cancer, the better chance we have of beating it. This means that all patients should know how to spot mouth cancer early and recognise the need for early dental intervention as soon as they see something out of the ordinary. It also means reducing patient risk by encouraging then to cut down on the things that cause mouth cancer.
This is why we need your help.
How you can support Mouth Cancer Action Month
This is incredibly clear when looking at the latest statistics concerning mouth cancer that more public awareness is needed. Cases have risen by 34 per cent over the past 10 years while too many are caught at a late stage – having a devastating impact on survival outcomes and quality of life.
The first step to supporting Mouth Cancer Action Month is by simply having a conversation about mouth cancer with your patients. Not enough patients know that a visual mouth cancer examination is given as part of every dental check-up. We need more people to be aware that a dental visit is about more than teeth and gums, it could also be lifesaving.
Education amongst patients, your local communities and the wider population must include the early signs and symptoms, and knowledge about the risk factors. We also must get more people into the habit of checking for mouth cancer at home. By signing up to support the campaign at www.mouthcancer.org, we’ll send you all the materials and resources you need to raise awareness face-to-face, on your practice website, through emails and on social media.
As a dental professional, you are in the perfect position to help drive the conversation about mouth cancer. For many, this has been made easier by wearing the campaign’s blue ribbon badge. More than 250,000 people have supported Blue Ribbon Appeal by wearing the enamel badge and it can be a highly effective way to draw a patient’s attention to the cause.
One of the most impactful ways you can raise awareness of mouth cancer is by telling patients about your own personal experiences of seeing patients with the disease. Our communications team on pr@dentalhealth.org are looking for your stories about mouth cancer so we can bring them to public attention.
As dental professionals, it is essential that we make sure our knowledge about mouth cancer is as current and detailed as possible. That’s why we’re so delighted to have the support of Denplan, part of Simplyhealth, who have created a fantastic multidisciplinary webinar series for November. The CPD events will feature mouth cancer seminars from some of the field’s leading experts. As soon as the full programme is released, we will be thrilled to share it with you and encourage you to register.
Finally, we are asking you to support Mouth Cancer Action Month by fundraising – either by yourself or as a team. It’s a really effective way to promote mouth cancer messages in a community setting while donating extremely important funds.
There is a library of fun and exciting fundraising events taking place throughout November in the UK. Book your places early by visiting www.mouthcancer.org