Mouth Cancer Action Month: Goccles

Last year more than 7,000 people were diagnosed with oral cancer in the UK. In just a decade the disease has grown by a third, and of all the advances there have been in battling cancer, it is one of the few cancers that is actually predicted to increase. Of course there are several risk factors that are heavily linked to the disease, such as smoking, but oral cancer can affect anyone. Mouth cancer takes more than 2000 lives every year, more than testicular and cervical cancer, even more than road traffic incidents.

The Oral Health Foundation campaign all year round in effort to raise awareness and battle mouth cancer. During November they run Mouth Cancer Action Month - a month long event which aims to raise awareness of mouth cancer and make a difference by saving thousands of lives through early detection and prevention. The Oral Health Foundation have directly invested over £270,000 into promoting oral cancer awareness, along side the 350 specialised events around the UK specifically set out to screen people for oral cancer, and the 250,000 people that now wear their blue ribbon badge to actively show support for the cause. This special month has increased the awareness of mouth cancer hugely, more than 1,000 related articles have been published reaching in excess of 150 million people.

In 2016 the foundation created a social campaign in effort to raise awareness throughout online social networks. It is called the 'Blue Lip Selfie Campaign', and is exactly what it says on the box! People all over the nation are taking a selfie with blue lips (animations, plastic lips or blue lipstick) then sharing it across social networks and uploading to www.bluelipselfie.co.uk, hash tagging #BlueLipSelfie. Blue is the colour of choice as it is the campaign's colour, along with their blue ribbons. We gave it a go ourselves and here's what we got!

Oral cancer is one of the most frequent cancer globally, unfortunately its late stage detection is a common problem worldwide. Early discovery is the most important step in reducing the death rate: when detected in first stage, patients have an 80 to 90 percent survival rate. Knowing the risk factors and regular check-ups, including a screening of the entire mouth, are essential in the early detection of cancerous and precancerous lesions.

With the innovative Goccles you can run a simple, non-invasive and painless test of the oral cavity, for early screening of oral cancer and other precancerous lesions. Goccles use UV radiation emitted from fluorescent molecules inside the mouth combined with a standard curing light. Healthy tissue will emit a green colour, abnormal tissue will show in a darker contrast.

"My impressions are positive and it is definitely a more modern piece of kit than the existing options"

Nichola Tong- Registered Dental Hygienist, BSc(Hons), Dip D.H.