Patch Blog: Local Dentist Makes a Pitch for Cancer Awareness

So I’ve actually practiced dentistry around here since late-Disco. And if I’m still practicing decades from now when Rosemead Blvd. is finally totally repaired, I’ll still never forget my patient who died of oral cancer.

There may have been others.

Up until about the last 10-12 years, seeing a suspicious oral lesion meant I had to convince a patient they needed to see an oral surgeon for a biopsy and a diagnosis. Sometimes I never saw that patient again. And…maybe they never followed through with that visit to the oral surgeon. If the lesion was cancerous, chances are less than 50-50 the patient was alive five years later.

Today, we can do a painless 3-minute screening in the office and have the imaging results back in a week. We get to treat pre-cancer; we get to prevent squamous cell carcinoma.

And even though twenty years have gone by, I can still clearly see the patient who didn’t make it. He was almost eighty years old, but he had jet black hair combed straight back from a hairline about an inch north of his jet black eyebrows. First impressions can last longer than Clipper losing streaks and I still remember thinking, “Man, I wish I had this guy’s hair genes.”

He was Italian-American, just like my Mom and aunts and uncles. And he had broad shoulders, stood ramrod straight, and coulda played a button man in The Godfather (My uncles were more the Johnnie Fontaine types.) Looked like he was on a path to live to be about 200 years-old and maybe beat up Jack Lalanne in the process. He was totally committed to caring for his wife who was suffering from liver cancer.

First time I saw him he presented with a sore upper left second molar. The tooth was unrestorable and I wound up referring him to the oral surgeon for an extraction. When I saw him two weeks later; the tissue around the extraction site looked suspicious.

The biopsy brought back the diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma. My patient couldn’t believe he had cancer; he felt fine. He delayed treatment. Surgery and radiation treatment came too late; he died within months, his wife continuing to fight liver cancer.

For the last nine years, with the support of a great dental organization, the Crown Council, and the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, our practice has put on an Oral Cancer Awareness Night at the Ballpark. The idea is stepping up the conversation about oral cancer and engaging 200 of our friends and as many radio listeners and Quakes’ fans as possible to do the right thing: see a dentist and have a painless 3-minute exam. Our night was just last month.

Looked like maybe everyone who doesn’t go to Dodgers games anymore showed up at the Quakes’ Epicenter stadium to see the “Class A” Los Angeles minor league club. Mascots Tremor and Aftershock showed up and the post-game fireworks were awesome. Nothing wrong with having fun while you create awareness (and I wish dental school educators could figure that one out.)

Oral cancer kills an American every hour. One-fourth of those diagnosed, don’t smoke or use spit tobacco. The 5-year survival rate for oral cancer is less than 50%. Oral cancer is the only cancer not reduced in its incidence in the last 40 years. Only about 16% of the population knows that they’ve ever had an oral cancer exam. Only 50% of Americans go to the dentist on a regular basis.

This year, I actually threw out the first pitch; even had to follow an Elvis impersonator. And sure, I was a little nervous about following the King and throwing an 80mph cutter for a strike in front of all my peeps up in the standsJ

Just hoped at least one person could look past the comedy on the mound, hear the message, and avoid being the next patient someone like me will never forget.