Oral, Head, and Neck Cancer Awareness Week will be held from April 16 to 22. This year’s theme is “Close the care gap”.
April is observed as Oral Cancer Awareness Month, with a week dedicated especially to mouth, head, and neck cancers.
These cancers usually occur due to tobacco consumption, and sometimes might be inherited too.
In recent years, oral, head, and neck cancers are also being noticed in young, non-smoking people who have tested positive for the H.P.V. virus.
Though the virus cannot be stopped from spreading, good practices can help keep these cancers at bay.
Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week was started by the Head and Neck Cancer Alliance (H.C.N.A.), to work with healthcare workers, patients, and survivors to combine efforts to prevent, treat, and detect cancers of the head and neck region.
Oral, head, and neck cancers usually affect the nasal cavity, sinuses, lips, mouth, thyroid glands, salivary glands, throat, or larynx.
Signs and symptoms of head and neck cancers are; change in voice, lump in the neck, sore throat that doesn’t heal, earache, painful swallowing, and rapid and unintentional weight loss.
People wear blue ribbons for oral cancer awareness and burgundy, white or red ribbons for head and neck cancers.
BY NKATHA WAINAINA