Gentle Dentistry’s New ViziLite® PRO Screening System For Early Detection Of Oral Cancer

The incidence of oral cancer is rising in the US, and most research studies indicate that early detection can lead to successful treatment. To help patients achieve this critical goal, Dr. Maggie Abadan at her Gentle Dentistry dental clinic in San Diego uses DenMat’s recently launched state-of-the-art ViziLite® PRO screening system for oral lesions for faster discovery of oral cancer.

Fluorescence visualization with the ViziLite® PRO enables Dr. Abadan to view wholly new visual data, which is essentially different from the information attained through a reflected white or another source of light. The bio-fluorescence technology of the ViziLite® PRO device reduces the time taken and increases the efficiency of the process to successfully screen for oral lesions and detect epithelial dysplasia—even in its earliest stages.

The clinic uses the ViziLite® PRO as part of its head and neck exam, and it takes about a minute more to do the exam, but it is easy to execute for the dentist and pain-free for the patient.

The ViziLite® PRO system makes the life-saving oral cancer screening exam more effective at a time when the death rate due to oral cancer, while stagnant for many decades, is steadily rising in the US. In 2015, the US recorded 45,700 cases of oral cancer, and in 2018 this figure is projected to grow to 49,750, according to the Oral Cancer Foundation. While the annual incidence of this type of cancer was about 30,000 for decades, it is now touching 50,000.

But latest research also shows that early diagnosis of this type of cancer increases the survival rate from 57% to 83%, and less invasive procedures at early stages can successfully treat oral cancer cases through more effective screening technology.

Considering the importance of early scrutiny, the ViziLite® PRO is a significant improvement over the current technology used by dentists and technicians. For more than 10 years, dental offices have been using fluorescence technology to increase the clarity of the oral mucosa, and the ViziLite® PRO is a vital technical inclusion in our dental office’s ability to discover and treat oral cancer as soon as possible in our patients.