Oral Cancer Screening and Awareness through Dental Camps

Abstract

Introduction: Oral cancer is one of the most common and preventable forms of cancer. Screening can be an effective tool for the early detection of oral cancer. Similarly, screening provides an opportunity to raise public awareness of oral cancer and the services available for it. Hence, this study was designed to determine the awareness of oral cancer and services provided by oral health professionals among diagnostic camp participants.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 4 wards of Kathmandu metropolitan city among 167 subjects to explore the awareness of oral cancer adopting a convenience sampling technique. Ethical approval for the study was taken from the Institutional Review Board of People’s Dental College and Hospital. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire delivered by a trained dental surgeon through face-to-face interviews. The raw data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 16.

Results: We found out that about 69.5% of the participants had heard about oral cancer with nearly 18.6% being aware of symptoms and very few ever had oral cancer screening on their own. 47.3% of participants choose to visit a general hospital rather than dental hospitals for any suspicious oral lesions. Similarly, few cases of oral lesions were seen.

Conclusions: The study reported more than two-thirds of the participants had heard about oral cancer. Similarly, a majority had general practitioners as their first option for treating oral lesions.