The Oral Cancer Foundation (OCF) is sponsoring the 14th Annual Oral Cancer Awareness Month this April.
The foundation is encouraging dental practices across the U.S. and Canada to offer free oral cancer screenings for at least three hours one day during April. Through this group collaboration, the foundation hopes to see oral cancer brought to the attention of as many individuals as possible and have the disease get the national media attention necessary to raise public awareness.
The dental community needs to be the first line of defense against oral cancer, noted Brian Hill, an oral cancer survivor who founded the organization and serves as executive director. Performing five-minute oral cancer screenings of patients who visit dental offices could have a profound impact on the ability to discover the disease at earlier, precancerous stages and dramatically reduce the mortality and morbidity of the disease, he added.
Dental practices that want to sign up to conduct an event, and people looking for practices offering free screenings in their community can find information at www.oralcancer-screening.org. The foundation will provide participating practices with the materials needed to conduct the screenings and generate exposure for the event in their community.
In April, foundation will again join forces with both professional societies and private sector companies that are stakeholders in the fight against this disease. The ADA, the Academy of General Dentistry, the American Academy of Oral Medicine, and the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery form the core of the professional society sponsorship. The foundation has also aligned with Henry Schein, LED Dental, DenMat, DentalEZ Group and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
