Oral and oral pharyngeal cancer: an update on incidence and epidemiology, identification, advances in treatment, and outcomes.

Dental health care providers offer a primary means by which improvements in outcome in oral and oral pharyngeal cancer can be realized. Early detection of mucosal abnormalities (e.g., leukoplakia, erythroplakia), which may represent the earliest identifiable premalignant change, requires only thorough oral-examination skills. Patient education and efforts to decrease the use of tobacco products are a critical means of decreasing incidence. Changes in cancer incidence related to tobacco cessation will take many years to affect statistical rates of oral and oral pharyngeal cancer.