Nearly 45,750 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer this year, according to the Oral Cancer Foundation. In 5 years, only slightly more than half of those patients will still be alive. The high rate of mortality is due to late diagnosis of the disease, which typically isn’t noticed until it has reached stage III or IV.
PeriRx LCC hopes to change that with SaliMark OSCC, which clinicians can use to screen patients for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). The easy to use yet advanced molecular DNA salivary test is now available from the online ordering systems of Benco Dental, Henry Schein Dental, and Patterson Dental.
The test is indicated for use when a visual oral examination using the naked eye or a fluorescent device detects a suspicious lesion or oral mucosal abnormality. Patients then swish 2 cc of rinse and spit into a collection tube. Next, the clinician ships the sample to the PeriRx lab using the FedEx overnight envelope that comes with the test kit.
Within 3 business days, the lab will provide the results indicating low, medium, or high risk of oral cancer. Clinicians would then continue to monitor the patient or refer the patient to a specialist for a biopsy.
“Although biopsies are the gold standard for determining pathology, they are invasive procedures that come back negative 90% of the time,” said Stephen Swanick, CEO of PeriRx. “SaliMark OSCC will greatly improve the efficiency and accuracy of any oral cancer exam protocol.”
The test was developed based on more than a decade of research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research with initial discovery and prevalidation work by Dr. David T.W. Wong of the University of California at Los Angeles.
For details, call (610) 544-3500 or go to perirx.com.
