Lack of Dentists Causes Cancer Risk to Rise in South Africa

Written by Dentistry TodayTuesday, 24 January 2012 11:29



People in South Africa are more at risk for mouth or throat cancer than they were in recent years. The reason is simple: there’s a shortage of dentists in the country.

There are fewer than 3,500 dentists who practicing in the entire country, according to the South African Dental Association. With that low number of dentists, there’s no conceivable way for people to visit the dentist regularly.

Some studies show that there are 500,000 people for each dentist in South Africa. Comparatively speaking, there is a dentist for about every 1,700 people in the United States—or slightly more or less, depending on the specific geography region.

With fewer dentists and dental visits, there are fewer chances to diagnose some type of mouth cancer or oral cancer.

There are some people that are going years between visits to the dentist. That problem, combined with smoking cigarettes and marijuana, are causing many issues for the country’s citizens. These issues are only compounded by unprotected sex and oral sex, which makes a person more susceptible to oral cancer.

The South African Dental Association states that the possibility of dying from some type of oral cancer is high based on the lack of dental visits. The reason is the cancer is diagnosed at a stage in which it’s too late to treat the problem because it has likely spread.