Patients in Crewe and Nantwich can get free checks for potential signs of mouth cancer.
A drop-in session has been organised by community dental teams from East Cheshire NHS Trust.
It coincides with Mouth Cancer Action Month in November.
Mouth cancer affects nearly 8,000 people in the UK every year and it’s thought more than 60,000 people will be diagnosed over the next decade.
The free checks clinic, which do not require appointments, takes place on Wednesday, November 18 between 9.30am and 12 noon and between 1.30pm and 3.30pm at Eagle Bridge Health and Wellbeing Centre, Dunwoody Way, Crewe.
Lynn McCutcheon, special care dental nurse and oral health educator with East Cheshire NHS
Trust, said: “Mouth cancer does not have the public awareness that other forms of cancer do.
“Yet shockingly it claims more lives every year than testicular and cervical cancer combined.
“We need to change this.
“Through our initiative we want to spread awareness of mouth cancer, its causes, the signs and symptoms and the role your dentist can play in helping to catch the disease early enough to beat it.”
The British Dental Health Foundation is promoting the month.
Chief executive Dr Nigel Carter added: “We are thankful for the support of East Cheshire NHS Trust.
“Public awareness remains vital to combatting the disease and through us all being ‘Mouthaware’ and spotting mouth cancer early enough, we are giving everyone the best possible chance to be successfully treated and have a good quality of life.
“I would advise everybody in the local area to take East Cheshire NHS Trust up on this opportunity as examination initiatives like this can make a real difference.”
East Cheshire NHS Trust’s Dental Services team is a referral service for patients with particular requirements and has numerous bases across eastern and central Cheshire.
For more information about dental health, visit NHS Choices
(pic under creative commons licence)
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