Oncological Concerns

Oncological Concerns: Before starting head and neck radiation and/or chemotherapy, your physician will require you to visit a prosthodontist for a thorough examination and address all dentally-related concerns prior to initiating his therapy. This is because of the immense changes to your mouth that will occur. Radiation therapy may have severe side effects, such as reducing the amount of saliva and causing difficulty in healing; therefore, a thorough assessment of the teeth must be conducted prior to treatment and teeth with poor prognosis must be extracted with sufficient time to heal before your cancer treatment can start. There will be very specific windows of opportunity to get cavities and extractions taken care of. A prosthodontist with experience in this complex field will know when those are.

I have been told to see a prosthodontist prior to treating my cancer? Why?

Oral Cancer Screenings:

A thorough head and neck exam will include feeling all the lymph nodes on both sides of your neck, visually checking both sides of your tongue, the insides of your cheeks, the roof of your mouth and the back of your throat. In additional to that, in our practice, we have incorporated the use of Vizilite® Plus fluorescence technology to help with early detection of oral cancer.  It is fast, easy and pain-free.  Oral cancer is very curable when discovered early.

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