ViziLite® Oral Cancer Screening
What is Oral Cancer?
Most people are surprised to learn that one American dies every hour from oral cancer; a death rate that has remained virtually unchanged for more than 40 years. In fact, recent statistics published by the American Cancer Society indicate that while the incidence and death rates for cancers overall has decreased, the incidence of oral cancer has increased by 5.5% and the death rate has increased by 1.5%Oral cancer is far too often discovered in late stage development, the primary reason for the consistently high death rate. Oral cancer treatment often results in disfiguring effects on patients, and can seriously compromise their quality of life. Early detection and diagnosis can make a tremendous difference in life expectancy; oral cancer is 90% curable when found in its early stages. Unfortunately, 70% of oral cancers are diagnosed in the late stages, III and IV, leading to a five-year survival rate of 57%.
About the ViziLite® Procedure
ViziLite Plus with TBlue™ is an oral lesion identification and marking system that is used as an adjunct to the conventional head and neck examination. It is comprised of a chemiluminescent light source (ViziLite) to improve the identification of lesions and a blue phenothiazine dye to mark those lesions identified by ViziLite. ViziLitePlus with TBlueTM is designed to be used in a patient population at increased risk for oral cancer.Lumenoscopy™ - Examination of the Oral Cavity with ViziLite
In clinical trials involving 13,000 female patients, abnormal squamous epithelium in the cervical complex appears distinctly white after washing the cervix with a dilute acetic acid solution and viewed under chemiluminescent light (Speculite®). Similarly, examination of the oral cavity under chemiluminescent light (ViziLite) after rinsing with a dilute acetic acid solution, abnormal squamous epithelium tissue will appear distinctly white. Lumenoscopy™ has demonstrated in numerous studies to improve the ability to visualize mucosal lesions and initially identify clinically suspicious lesions.TBlue™ Oral Lesion Marking System
TBlue™ is a patented, pharmaceutical-grade toluidine blue-based metachromatic dye. It is used to further evaluate and closely monitor changes in ViziLite-identified lesions. It has been proposed that living cells will differentially accumulate toluidine blue based on parameters related to metabolic activity. TBlue™ , packaged in an easy to use 3-swab system, provides the deep blue staining that allows ViziLite-identified lesions to be seen clearly under normal light.