Subscribe to our newsletter. A Need For Increased Oral Cancer Screening Cancer of the lip, tongue, pharynx, and mouth affects approximately 30,000 people every year. This disease kills almost 8,000 people every year, or about one person an hour. Surgery for this disease can disfigure a face and cause emotional trauma especially in a society that places high value on physical appearance. Treatment of oral and pharyngeal cancer often results in loss of chewing, swallowing, and speaking ability along with chronic discomfort.
Risk increases with greater consumption.
Heavy drinkers who smoke more than one pack of cigarettes a day are 24 times more likely to develop oral cancer than people who do not abuse either substance. Men's risk of being diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer is twice that of women, and African American men suffer more from this disease. Oral cancer is the sixth leading cancer in US men and the fourteenth most common cancer in US women, it is the fourth most common cancer in African American men, who are also more likely to be diagnosed at an earlier age and more advance stage. Ninety-five percent of oral cancer is diagnosed in people older than 45 years, and the median age of diagnosis is 64 years. Compared with other cancers, oral and pharyngeal cancer has one of the poorest 5-year survival rates.