Screening for Oral Cancer

It’s not a pleasant topic, but it is important to remember: no one is immune to oral cancer. As such, Dr. Jerry Vasilakos at Planet Dentistry in Toronto, Ontario, makes it his mission to screen every patient who comes into the office for signs of the sickness.

During a regular dental exam, we check not only your teeth, but also the soft tissues in your mouth, head, and neck. We palpate lymph nodes, we look under your tongue, the sides of the tongue, and even on the back of the throat—searching high and low for any type of anomaly.

If we do find a concern, Dr. Jerry Vasilakos and the Planet Dentistry team are extremely well connected to a network of specialists within the dental community. We will do our utmost to achieve a diagnosis for whatever ailment or concern we may have from our findings.

There are many opportunities to screen for oral cancer. It’s something we do at every dental hygiene appointment, it’s done upon meeting a patient for the first time (after a “hello, how are you”, of course), and it’s a service we offer to anyone and everyone interested in having an intraoral exam for the specific purpose of checking for oral cancer.

These screenings only take about a minute or so, and are absolutely free for our Planet Dentistry patients. If we do happen to find something troublesome, we can certainly deal with it.

The key to dealing with oral cancer is early detection. It’s the reason we encourage regular check-ups. Our mission at Planet Dentistry is to make our patients feel comfortable and safe in our hands. We’re here for you.