April is Oral Cancer month. Please give us a call if you have any questions.

• Oral and pharyngeal cancer, grouped together, is the sixth most common cancer in the world.
• Close to 48,250 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer this year. It will cause over 9,575 deaths. Of those 48,250 newly diagnosed individuals, only slightly more than half will be alive in 5 years. (Approximately 57%) This is a number which has not significantly improved in decades.
• The death rate for oral cancer is higher than that of cancers which we hear about routinely such as cervical cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma, laryngeal cancer, cancer of the testes, and endocrine system cancers such as thyroid.
• The risks of oral cancer are aggravated by HPV16 and tobacco smoking. With sexually transmitted HPV16 rates increasing, oral cancer patients are increasingly young, healthy and non-smoking individuals.
• Oral cancer is particularly dangerous because in its early stages it may not be noticed by the patient, as it can frequently prosper without producing pain or symptoms they might readily recognize, and because it has a high risk of producing second, primary tumors. This means that patients who survive a first encounter with the disease, have up to a 20 times higher risk of developing a second cancer.
• It is estimated that approximately $3.2 billion is spent in the United States each year on treatment of head and neck cancers. (2010 numbers).
• The good news is that a dentist or a dental hygienist can see or feel the precancerous tissue changes which might lead to a cancer. The examination takes less than 5-10 min of your time.
• Visual and tactile exam is inexpensive, painless and quick.
• Everyone over age of 18 should be screened annually.

What habits and foods stain your teeth? As you might imagine, intensely colored foods and beverages tend to be the biggest offenders. Imagine what can badly stain the perfect white shirt. The same stands true for the teeth. The more intense the color, the more potential there is for staining. The biggest offenders are red wine, cola, black tea and coffee. The color in these foods and beverages comes from chromogens, intensely pigmented molecules with an unfortunate penchant for latching on to dental enamel.

But the presence of chromogens isn’t the only thing that determines the staining potential of foods and beverages. Acidity is another factor. Acidic foods and beverages -- including some that are not brightly colored -- promote staining by eroding the dental enamel, temporarily softening teeth and making it easier for pigment to latch on. Imagine the staining potential of dark coffee with high acidity and abundance of chromogens. And finally, a family of food compounds known as tannins promotes staining by further boosting chromogens’ ability to attach to enamel.

Periodontitis is an inflammatory disease, microbial (bacterial) in its nature, affecting the tissues that surround and support the teeth. In a picture below, various stages of periodontitis are shown: from early to advanced stage with stronger and stronger tissue resorption.

As a few other chronic inflammations, periodontitis may impair vascular function, and epidemiologic data suggest a possible link between periodontitis and cardiovascular disease. In early 2000's a connection between inflammatory conditions such as periodontitis and risk of atherosclerosis was well established. Since then a number of other cardiovascular conditions and adverse pregnancy outcome risk have been linked to periodontitis. It has also been reported to be a risk factor for Alzheimer disease and rheumatoid arthritis as well.

Early diagnosis and intervention should be the primary goals of periodontal treatment. However, periodontitis often progresses without noticeable symptoms, and many patients do not seek professional dental care until the periodontal destruction progresses to the point of no return.

It is important to know symptoms of periodontitis:

- Redness or bleeding of gums while brushing teeth or using floss

- Recurring gum swelling

- Bad breath and a persistent metallic taste in the mouth

- Tissue recession, resulting in apparent lengthening of teeth and deep pockets between the teeth and the gums

Proper dental hygiene is critical for preventing and controlling periodontitis. If no proper teeth hygiene is practiced, microbial plaque calcifies to form calculus, which is commonly called tartar. Calculus above and below the gum line must be removed completely by the dental hygienist or dentist to treat gingivitis and periodontitis.

In advanced stages of periodontitis, loosing teeth is a common problem, and success of implant placement can be limited. Implants placed in patients treated for periodontal disease are associated with higher incidence of complications and lower success and implant survival rates than those placed in periodontally healthy patients. Severe forms of periodontal disease are associated with higher rates of implant loss. Thus, in advanced stages, periodontitis requires an observation and treatment by a periodontology specialist, but severe condition prevention can be achieved by regular teeth hygiene and visits to a general dentist to teeth cleaning or scaling/root planing if clinically reasonable and necessary.

On Sept 11-13, Cascade Dental Group team participated in 2015 Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival.

We proudly sponsored the Festival which has been an amazing Mukilteo community tradition for the last 50 years.

It was a great opportunity to meet many community members, people of different ages and occupations, and to talk to them about dental health and about our clinic.

We had a lot of fun at this exciting event and met so many great people. Thank you, Mukilteo!