Oral Cancer
There were 299,051 cases of lip and oral cavity cancers in 2012 and 145,353 deaths worldwide: adding those with oro-and hypo-pharynx cancers, raising this figure to 441,000 cases per year and 241,458 deaths.
Abstract
Oral cancer is a major and growing global public health problem, and it remains the major cause of death from oral disease worldwide. It includes malignancy of the vermillion borders of the lips, and all surfaces of the oral cavity including the anterior two-thirds of the tongue. These cancers occur predominantly as squamous cell carcinomas, and they are highly lethal, incapacitating and disfiguring. There were 299,051 cases of lip and oral cavity cancers in 2012 and 145,353 deaths worldwide: adding those with oro-and hypo-pharynx cancers, raising this figure to 441,000 cases per year and 241,458 deaths. These carcinomas have one of the lowest 5-year survival rates (about 50%) of all cancers. The survival rates are improving gradually in well-resourced treatment centres, but many of the cases around the world come late to treatment and fare badly.