Oral Cancer Risk Assessment

Once a recommendation for testing has been made, a HIPAA compliant patient portal has been created where the testing company will contact you directly via email. The laboratory fee for this testing is $299.00 with payment directly to Viome (not to our office). At this time, medical insurance will not cover this cost but this is likely to change over time similar to other cancer screening tests. Please note: this is a simple saliva test and sample collection is recommended in the morning before breakfast, before coffee or the brushing of your teeth. Several weeks later, the test results will be sent directly to you and to our office for your dentist to review.

If the test is negative, the recommendation according to the Oral Cancer Foundation, is re-tested once per year since due to your high personal risk assessment.

If the test is positive, please call our office and then we will guide you to a secondary specialist to provide a definitive diagnosis. Please understand that if the test is positive, this may or may not mean you have oral cancer. In other words, with a specificity of 95%, this means 5% of the time there will be false positives. Nonetheless, the biomarkers are strongly suggestive of these diseases and confirmation of the presence of absence of cancer is the proper next medicolegal step. There are no such additional consultation fees from our office to review these findings or to make any necessary recommendations. This testing also represent a significant step toward full healthcare consumerism and personalized oral medicine. Healthcare consumerism describes a concept where your healthcare provider should share with you important information about their diagnostic findings, treatment options and prognosticating factors so that you can be more involved with the decision-making processes. This is part of what is called “patient empowerment” which means you should have a full understanding of either what you need to do to be healthier or what you need to stay healthy. In this case, we view this particular testing as an important personal and public health care initiative. Salivary evaluation and the era of molecular dentistry which includes artificial intelligence, RNA and microbiome analysis represents a quantum leap in our field. We are especially excited to be at the forefront of this technology as it provides our patients with the opportunity to maintain continued health and an excellent quality of life. Additional information will be furnished upon request.