Risks

Oral exams for oral cancer screening have some limitations, such as:

• Oral cancer screening could lead to additional tests. Many people have sores in their mouths, with the great majority of these sores being noncancerous. An oral exam can't determine which sores are cancerous and which are not.

  If your dentist finds an unusual sore, you may go through further testing to determine its cause. The only way to definitively determine whether you have oral cancer is to remove some abnormal cells and test them for cancer with a procedure called a biopsy.

• Oral cancer screening can't detect all mouth cancers. It can be difficult to detect areas of abnormal cells just by looking at your mouth, so it's possible that a small cancer or precancerous lesion could go undetected.
• Oral cancer screening hasn't been proved to save lives. There's no evidence that routine oral examinations to look for signs of oral cancer can reduce the number of deaths caused by oral cancer. However, screening for oral cancer may help find cancers early — when cure is more likely.