Healthy Mouths -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 12/22/2004
Last Visited: 1/5/2006
And at first glance, Zember's Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., dentist, William Balanoff, didn't notice anything unusual during a routine examination-until he pulled out a new oral-cancer screening tool called ViziLite.
After Zember rinsed with a raspberry-flavored acetic solution, Balanoff inserted a ViziLite light stick into his patient's mouth.
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"It was tiny, but I couldn't explain it away," says Balanoff, since Zember had no history of canker sores that could have left such a mark.
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So Balanoff referred him to an oral surgeon to have the lesion checked out.A biopsy revealed the cells were cancerous."It was so tiny, I might not have noticed it until a year or a year and a half later [once it had grown]," says Balanoff."By then, it would have been a stage-three cancer, and his chances wouldn't have been that good."