I'm new to the Oral Cancer Foundation Forum, however, certainly not new to oral/oropharyngeal cancer. I'm here with permission from the Oral Cancer Foundation and serve on the OCF Advisory Board. My reason for being here is to learn from you, to be a voice for future oral cancer patients and most of all to ignite a fire under my professional community, being dentistry, to do all they can to discover head and neck and oral cancer in its earliest stages. My professional life has been dedicated to this cause for 2 decades. My personal life has been impacted by having a cousin diagnosed with Stage IV HPV-tonsillar cancer over a decade ago and more recently, another family member with laryngeal cancer. When I started speaking specifically about HPV-related cancer back 15 years ago, it was new and unfamiliar to the dental community and the public at large. Now, as you all know, it is something we here about each and every day. You are the heroes. I am simply the messenger. Anything you wish me to share to get this message driven home to the dental community will be a gift to our profession. My sincere thank you in advance for sharing as you feel comfortable doing so.

So glad you are here anytime we have a member from medical field is very helpful to all of us here thankyou for joining us.

Thank you for your warm welcome. I'm happy to be a resource in any capacity I may be. I'm supported by a strong network of experts in their field. I am a colleague of Jill Meyer-Lippert, founder of Side Effect Support. She is a dental hygienist who has dedicated her life to supporting cancer patients. She has been so helpful to so many in providing assistance with dealing with side effects. www.sideeffectsupport.com

Marley: More than twenty years ago I was alerted to a white spot by a dentist here in the Boston area. I have always been thankful that my dentists have been pro-active at giving me early warning which have led to early treatment in two specific cases of oral cancer. I hope you can use my experience in promoting early detection. As a long term survivor, I well know and highly appreciate the value of early detection.

I would like to respond to an additional concern regarding serious long-term dental side effects. My husband required a post-treatment extraction. I was appalled at the inaccurate information & recommendations that we received from several local oral surgeons, seemingly unaware of ORN risk. We traveled to a major NYC hospital for consultation with an oral surgeon on their oral cancer team. Finally after extraction, a debridement and tissue transfer was performed. His jaw has been stable since that surgery.

One local oral surgeon even recommended extracting adjacent teeth at the same time "so you won't have to worry about those getting infected in the future"
The concern that needs to be emphasized to the dental community--
It's understood that you can't be experts in all aspects of oral cancer but Do Not work on post-radiated jaws without further consultation. Don't they teach about ORN in dental school and continuing education?

Thank you Marley,
Lottie