March 1, 2011
The Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) has awarded Dentistry associate professor Dr. Catherine Poh and members of the BC Oral Cancer Prevention Program team a $5 million grant.
This grant will support a Canada-wide Phase III randomized surgical trial to further evaluate fluorescence visualization (FV) as a visual enhancement tool in oral cancer surgery. The trial—involving multiple centres and disciplines— is already running in BC and will soon be underway across the country.
Poh is a pioneer in the use of FV, a light tool that uses optics to detect cancerous margins and helps surgeons determine the extent of the high-risk tissue. Poh has seen recurrence rates in oral cancer reduced from 25 percent to almost zero through application of FV.
For more information, read the article, “Reaching Out to Combat Oral Cancer”