MADURAI: Around 1,200 dental students participated in the two-day state-level conference, which began in Madurai on Saturday, and oral cancer, due to its high prevalence in the country, was one of the most discussed topics on the day.
Students from a total of 30 colleges from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry participated in the ‘Impact 2019: 2nd Tamil Nadu State Indian Dental Association (IDA) Student Conference’.
Speaking to TOI, the organizers said that though an array of topics on dental trends were spoken about during the programme, oral cancer was given a particular focus not only because of its prevalence but also because of certain misconceptions surrounding it. Dr R Yoganandha, secretary of IDA Thirumangalam branch, who is a part of the organizing committee, in fact, said that their association was particular about intensifying and coming up with several awareness and sensitization programmes regarding oral cancer because “30% to 40% of overall oral cancer cases across the world were from south Asian countries including India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.”
“While people immediately approach doctors when a particular wound in finger or any other part does not heal for a long time, when it comes to oral ulcer, which does not get healed for a long time, most opt self-treatment and think it will heal on its own,” he said and added that in such instances, they should immediately consult a dentist as on some occasions, there could be a possibility of oral cancer as well. The experts also said that people should be very careful because “pain on many occasions could occur only at the advanced stages during oral cancer”. As for the reason of the higher prevalence of oral cancer in the country, doctors said it was because of the large number of people using various forms of tobacco and not only as cigarettes.