By sharing her personal family story with the media in an effort to raise awareness for a cancer that devastated her family, Blythe Danner has partnered with The Oral Cancer Foundation by Bristol-Myers Squibb and ImClone Systems Incorporated to speak out about head and neck cancer. Danner shares that she lost her husband Bruce Paltrow to oral cancer. "When Bruce's voice became hoarse, we didn't realize this was a sign of this disease. By the time we spoke to a doctor, his cancer was very advanced," states Danner. She wants to educate the public to the signs and symptoms of head and neck cancers in the hope that other families will not have to suffer the same loss of a loved one.

Most people probably do not know that the death rate for oral cancer is higher than cervical cancer, brain cancer, liver cancer, testicular cancer, kidney cancers, or skin cancer. Tobacco use in all its forms is the number one risk factor. Biological factors include viruses and fungi, which have been linked to oral cancers. The human papilloma virus, particularly HPV16 and 18, have been implicated in some oral cancers. A diet low in fruits and vegetables can be a risk factor. Head and neck cancers are usually not diagnosed in the earliest stages because it is so easy to miss or dismiss. What might appear as a simple white or red patch of tissue in the mouth or a common canker sore can be nothing more than a temporary irritation -- or it can be an early sign of cancer. Other cancer symptoms can include: a lump or mass which can be felt inside the mouth or neck; pain or difficulty in swallowing, speaking, or chewing; any wart like masses; hoarseness which lasts for a long time; or numbness. Other than the lips, the most common areas for oral cancer to develop are on the tongue and the floor of the mouth. You can hear Blythe Danner at Speak Out Learn About, read the Speak Out Learn About Head and Neck Cancer Fact Sheet -- available as a PDF document -- or visit The Oral Cancer Foundation for more information.

As Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week just ended yesterday, I am a little late to the party. However, while I was looking up information about smoking, I visited their website to discover an eye-opening section profiling historical and famous people throughout history who suffered from cancer as a result of smoking. Sigmund Freud, considered by many to be the most important historical figure in the areas of psychology and psychiatry for his theories on the subconscious, was so addicted to nicotine, that he hid a cancerous growth in his mouth for years because he did not want to be admonished for his smoking habit.

In the few times Freud did manage to quit smoking, he wrote to a friend, "I have not smoked for seven weeks since the day of your injunction. At first I felt, as expected, outrageously bad ... with mild depression, as well as the horrible misery of abstinence. These wore off but left me completely incapable of working, a beaten man. After seven weeks I began smoking again ... Since the first few cigars, I was able to work and was the master of my mood; before that life was unbearable." Despite experiencing the last fifteen years of his life as a series of painfully dangerous surgeries, and the replacement of most of his jaw, Freud smoked until the day of his death.