There are different factors that are can lead to head and neck cancers, smoking being one of them. However, it is not the only cause of the disease. Read on as a doctor explains why head and neck cancer is not just a cause of concern.
World Head and Neck Cancer Day is observed every year on July 27. The day aims to raise awareness about head and neck cancers, which is one of the most common cancers. There are different factors that are can lead to head and neck cancers. It was a preconceived notion that head and neck cancers usually happen due to smoking.
While that is a major factor, there are several other factors that can play a role. Read on as Dr. Aravind Badiger, Technical Director at BDR Pharmaceuticals explains why head and neck cancer is not just a cause of concern for smokers. Dr Badiger said, “Non-smokers, and mostly younger people are increasingly becoming diagnosed and that implies that we shall need to think, detect, and control this complex group of cancers in a new way.”
Head and Neck Cancer Causes
- HPV Infections: HPV mainly HPV-16 has proven to be one of the causes of oropharyngeal cancer, including the ones in the tonsils and base of the tongue. However, unlike the old tobacco based cancers, HPV-positive cerebral and neck cancers are increasingly being recorded in younger adults who have had no history of smoking or alcohol. This is one of the signs of the changing risk environment.
- Exposure to the Environment and Occupation: Head and neck cancers are increasingly being associated with prolonged exposure to industrial pollution, traffic exhaust and degraded urban air quality. These environmental factors have been over looked before but lately, have come to be counted as major carcinogenic causative agents particularly to those who reside or spend their working days in urban or industrial areas.
- Nutrition and Oral Hygiene: A combination of inadequate nutrients and lack of antioxidants in diet, entwined with poor oral hygiene and continual dental infections, may form an inflammatory condition which suggests a pre-cancerous tendency in the mouth cavity. And these factors that people tend to neglect most of the time are particularly important to argue out in cases where access to regular dental treatment and balanced diet are not precisely available.
- Alcohol and Genetic Predisposition: Enhanced probability of head and neck cancer can be advanced even by regular or moderate consumption of alcohol even when there is no presence of tobacco. In other scenarios, genetic mutations could be passed on genetically and further expose a person to cancerous disease regardless of the lifestyle they engage in.
- Awareness and Early Action is necessary: Delayed diagnosis in non-smokers is also one of the problems that we still have to deal with. Most patients and even medical professionals are not likely to think about cancer when the person has never smoked or drunk and this may cause delay in detection and low chances of cure.