Oral cancer awareness in North-Western Spain: a population-based study

xlomafota13 shared this article with you from Inoreader Oral cancer awareness in North-Western Spain: a population-based study Via pubmed: "med oral patol oral... Med Oral Patol Oral Cir Bucal. 2021 Jun 24:24401. doi: 10.4317/medoral.24401. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: An early diagnosis depends greatly on patient awareness. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate general awareness of oral cancer and knowledge about its risk factors, signs and symptoms. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Cross-sectional population-based survey of randomly selected respondents conducted from March 1, 2015 to 30 June 2016. RESULTS: A total of 5,727 people entered the survey (response rate: 53%). When asked what cancers participants had heard about, 20.3% mentioned oral cancer. Regarding risk factors, tobacco was mentioned by 55.3% of the sample (n=3,169), followed by alcohol (12.5%; n=708), poor oral hygiene (10.8%; n=618), diet (6.5%; n=377), and genetics (4.5%; n=248). CONCLUSIONS: General population has low awareness of oral cancer with poor knowledge of risk factors and main alarm si gns. In addition, individuals in the risk group scored lower values in the main variables analysed; even those highly educated showed insufficient awareness and knowledge of oral cancer. In these circumstances, there is clear need for educational interventions tailored to the target audience and aimed at increasing knowledge and awareness of oral cancer to promote primary prevention of oral cancer and minimising the time interval of patients with symptomatic oral cancer in their path to treatment. PMID:34162825 | DOI:10.4317/medoral.24401 View on the web Inoreader. Take back control of your news feed. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.