Jerry, call Schein and buy a small exam mirror with a long shaft normally found in ENT offices. The mirror size is about 2/3rds as big as a conventional dental mirror. When using it (as you clearly understand) be careful not to touch the back of the patient's throat and initiate a gag reflex. With practive, a QUICK pass of a finger across the base of the tongue will also reveal hard areas or lumps. My doc does this so fast I barely have an issue with gaging, and he says the feeling of a begining cratered lesion or hard indurated tumor is unmistakable once you have felt the first one. Pulling the tongue forward with a 2X2 facilitates both of these things, getting things further away from a relfex area, and also into a more visible one at the same time.

I will have to scan the databases to get you the actual numbers on tonsillar and BOT's.

The article is going to be in Nexus which is a publication of NYU School of Dentistry. The entire issue is devoted to Oral Cancer.

I have taken this issue up with many others in government, and it will take public pressure to get past the roadblocks that exist. We have talked before about a letter writting /email campaign to decision makers, and I hope in the near future we will be able to get a significant number of OCF involved people on the task.