Oral Cancer Update

Doctors and scientists at the BC Cancer Agency in Canada began testing a device last September that emits a blue light, as part of a five-year study on 400 patients who are suffering from cancer that has afflicted their tongue or other parts of the mouth. This new tool is giving patients with oral cancer a chance of survival.
The medics are using this new approach to remove tumours and pre-cancerous cells from the mouths of those diagnosed with early-stage oral cancer. The new tool allows surgeons to see cancer cells that cannot be detected by conventional white light so they can remove the affected tissue and prevent the disease recurring.
Miriam Rosin, the principle investigator of the study, said the blue-light tool had been used to detect lung, cervical and skin cancers but is being used surgically for the first time for oral cancer.
She explains: ‘It's groundbreaking because, if it works the way we hope it works, it's going to have a big impact in the way we treat the disease and the assurance is from surgeons and from the professional societies that this will change clinical practice.'