Dental practitioners are trained to diagnose premalignant and malignant lesions, and individual dentists have been making these diagnoses for years.
However, there has been no agreement on who and how to screen for oral cancer or on when and where to refer patients for management. As a result, the problem of late diagnosis has not been addressed.
In recognition of this problem, in March 2008 the BC Oral Cancer Prevention Program (BC OCPP) partnered with the College of Dental Surgeons of BC to develop
Guidelines for the Early Detection of Oral Cancer. A
special issue on oral cancer in the Journal of Canadian Dental Association (JCDA) was published in April 2008 featuring the guidelines and other informative articles. Key information on approaches to applying these guidelines in day-to-day clinical practice was presented at the Pacific Dental Conference in 2008. The following are the presentations from that strategic event.
Special thanks to Dr. John O'Keefe, Editor-in-Chief of
Journal of the Canadian Dental Association for making this webpage possible. For back issues, Please visit the Journal of the Canadian Dental Association
website.
