Preventing
Oral Cancer
What Can I Do? Stopping Oral
• Quit or cut back on tobacco use
(cigarettes, snuff and chew)
Cancer Early
• Quit or cut back on alcohol use
• Ask your dentist or doctor for an
• Eat five or more fruits and oral cancer exam once a year
vegetables every day
• Ask if your dentist or doctor saw
• Use a lip balm with a sunscreen or felt something unusual
• Check your own mouth for white
or red spots that may not hurt • Go back to the dentist or
doctor if you have a sore throat
• Have a yearly oral cancer exam. or any spot in your mouth that
is still there after 2 weeks
IDPH Toll-free Tobacco Quit Line:
1-866-QUIT-YES or 1-800-784-8937
Oral Cancer Oral Cancer What is an
Facts can be Oral Cancer
Oral Cancer Statistics prevented! Exam?
• Oral cancer strikes twice as many
men as women. It only takes five minutes.
What Causes Oral Cancer? Your dentist or doctor examines your
• Out of about 30,000 new cases • Tobacco and alcohol use are the mouth—
every year in the U.S., it will kill most common reasons you get
nearly 7,500 people. oral cancer. • Looks under your tongue
• They are more dangerous • Checks the sides of your tongue
• Oral cancer strikes African together than if you do one using a piece of gauze to pull your
American men more often than without the other. tongue out a little
other men. In Illinois in 2000, 156 • Human papillomaviruses (HPV)
African American men got oral may play a role in causing oral • Feels your neck and around your
cancer and 50 died from it. cancer. mouth
• Too much sun can cause lip • Checks your cheeks and gums and
• In five years, half of all people cancer. the roof of your mouth
diagnosed with oral cancer today • Poor diet can make it easier to
will be dead. • Looks in your throat and checks
get oral cancer. your tonsils
• 90% of oral cancer patients use • People of any age can get oral
cancer, but those over 40 are • If an unusual area is found, you
tobacco. may be referred to a specialist.
more at risk.
• Every hour of every day, someone
dies from oral cancer.
• The key to beating oral cancer is
to prevent it or to find it early! That’s atit!
It doesn’t hurt all!
All the doctor or dentist does is
look and feel!