Lesions within the oral cavity might be signs of cancer, doctors at Taipei City Hospital said recently after a case of leukoplakia was discovered by hospital staff during a community checkup in Taipei’s Yangmingshan (陽明山) area.
The 37-year-old patient had been diagnosed with leukoplakia, which are considered pre-cancerous lesions and have a 10 percent chance of turning into cancer if not treated properly, said the hospital ‘s Yangming branch dentist, Lin Hui-chun (林慧娟).
Due to the lack of pain when lesions develop, it is difficult to identify unless patients are clinically examined, Lin said, adding that most patients do not seek medical attention until they can actually feel rough patches in the oral mucosa or when the lesions begin to hurt slightly.
Usually doctors suggest a biopsy from every part of the oral cavity with a lesion to check for epithelial variation, Lin said, adding that if there are signs of variation or verrucous hyperplasia doctors would call for the removal of the entire patch of epithelium.
Lin said that the variation between the epithelium and signs of verrucous hyperplasia increase the chances of leukoplakia becoming cancerous, adding that adult patients should have an oral cavity checkup at least once every six months.
Individuals who smoke, drink, or chew betel nut should not only have routine six-month oral cavity checkups, but also pay special attention to any sort of changes to further prevent oral cancer, Lin said.
Lin said that the variant leuko erythroplakia — in which the lesions are red instead of white — indicates a higher chance of the condition becoming cancerous, adding that the redder the lesion, the higher the chance of the individual being diagnosed with oral cancer.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching