The Victorian Oral Cancer Screening and Prevention Program
The Oral Cancer Screening and Prevention Program is funded by the Victorian Department of Health as an initiative under the current Victorian Cancer Plan. The plan identified that oral cancer has a relatively low survival rate, with the need to increase prevention, screening and early detection to ultimately reduce the impact on Victorians at higher risk of the disease.
The program is led by Dental Health Services Victoria, in partnership with the University of Melbourne Dental School, the Australian Dental Association (Victorian Branch), La Trobe University Department of Dentistry and the Department of Health.
Stage 1 of the program focuses on equipping oral health professionals to identify high risk groups and detect early signs of oral cancer, which includes cancers of the oral cavity and oropharynx. Following a training pilot in 2019, Dental Health Services Victoria is now leading an ongoing program of evidence-based training, information and tools which is made available to all Victorian oral health professionals in community and private practice through this online Oral Cancer Learning Hub.
Content for this website was written by Kym Lang, Oral Cancer Screening and Prevention Program lead at Dental Health Services Victoria and Michael McCullough, Professor of Oral Medicine at the Melbourne Dental School, the University of Melbourne.
The program management group would like to acknowledge the following clinicians for their valuable input: Dr Nicole Heaphy, Dental Health Services Victoria; Dr Sophie Beaumont, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre; Professor Jane Hocking, the University of Melbourne; and Professor Suzanne Garland AO, the University of Melbourne.
Thank you to all our content reviewers: Melissa Cartledge, Ruth Heredia, Ben Scully and Susanne Sofronoff, all at Dental Health Services Victoria; Sonia Georgiades, Australian Dental Association (Victorian Branch); and Anil Raichur, Department of Health.
Disclaimer
Oral cancer evidence and medical knowledge is constantly changing. The authors have taken care to ensure that the information in this website is accurate and up to date at the time it was created.
