Treatment for oral cancer causes pain and suffering, loss of speech, hearing, salivary and chewing functions and loss of time from work. Head and neck surgery as a treatment for oral cancer can be disfiguring, making social interaction and acceptance difficult for patients. Recovery from oral cancer is lengthy, and the costs of treating and rehabilitating patients are high. In the past several years the treatment of oral cancer has improved significantly with advances in head and neck and plastic surgery, radiation and speech therapy. Despite these advances there has been no improvement in the long term survival of patients afflicted with this disease.
Early detection can increase the effectiveness of surgery and radiation treatment.
However, oral cancer patients have a high risk of developing a second malignancy, usually in their upper respiratory or digestive tract. Therefore, these patients may have a low long term survival rate even if the oral cancer was treated early. Although oral cancers occur in all races there are differences in occurrence by race. And the incidence in Black males is nearly twice that of White males. Blacks also develop oral cancer at younger ages than Whites and often have a worse prognosis.