General Membership Meeting: Oral Cancer: From Screening to Survivorship- 6/9/22

IN-PERSON EVENT – SCCDS strongly recommends wearing a mask at indoor meetings/events.

HYBRID/ONLINE OPTION BELOW – MEMBERS ONLY – Please log in to the online event at 6:45 pm.

Oral cancer is readily treatable when diagnosed early. The dental health care professional is often the first to be consulted by a patient with signs and symptoms of oral cancer. Non-healing ulcers, red lesions, red and white lesions, white lesions, and irregular masses require either further investigation or close follow-up to ensure appropriate management. Any oral lesion that does not heal and is not yet diagnosed as some other mucosal abnormality should be suspicious for a premalignant or malignant lesion. Biopsy or referral for biopsy by the dentist can significantly reduce the delay in diagnosis, and improve outcomes. We will discuss practical recommendations and pearls for screening and managing patients with suspicious lesions in the general practice setting, including:

1. How to recognize premalignant lesions;

2. When to monitor, biopsy, or refer suspicious lesions; and

3. An overview of the multidisciplinary management of the oral cancer patient from diagnosis, metastatic workup and tumor board review, to treatment with surgery, radiation therapy, and/or chemotherapy;

Speaker:

Dr. David Lam

David K. Lam, MD, DDS, Ph.D., FRCDC serves as chair and Dr. T. Galt and Lee DeHaven Atwood Endowed Professor in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. Dr. Lam specializes in the comprehensive surgical management of patients with cancer, pathology, and trigeminal nerve injury. His research and clinical programs are closely integrated, and his research addresses the challenges he faces in the clinical management of oral and maxillofacial surgery patients. He obtained his DDS with Honors from the University of Toronto and subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in the Collaborative Program in Neuroscience and Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Specialty Certificate from the same institution. He earned his MD from the University of California, Davis, and completed a Postdoctoral Neuroscience Research Fellowship, as well as a Surgical Fellowship in Maxillofacial Oncology and Reconstructive Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery and a Fellow (OMFS) in the Royal College of Dentists in Canada. His funded research focuses on the diagnosis and management of pathology, nerve injury, and pain. In addition to funding on research, education, and training grants, Lam has published and presented internationally, nationally, and locally on a variety of topics relevant to his research and clinical interests.