After 10 years of working as a dentist, Dr. Catherine Poh was ready for a new challenge. She enrolled in UBC Dentistry’s PhD program and became passionate about oral cancer research. Her thesis looked at identifying biomarkers to help determine when precancerous cells were at a high risk of developing into cancer.

Dr. Poh went on to complete her oral pathology residency training. Today, she runs a robust oral cancer research program where she studies the full spectrum of the disease—from the cellular level all the way to treatment.

“The mortality of oral cancer is quite high—about 50 per cent of people diagnosed with it will die within five years—and knowing this motivates me to continue doing my research,” says Dr. Poh. “In the past, there was a ‘let’s wait and see’ mentality when it came to precancer but today, we’re much more proactive about early intervention and treatment.”

Research from Dr. Poh’s laboratory resulted in a breakthrough way of removing oral cancer via surgery. In the past, cancer would reoccur in roughly one in three patients who underwent surgery to remove cancerous oral lesions. Dr. Poh discovered how to use fluorescence visualization technology—an imaging technique—to help surgeons more accurately remove oral cancer, drastically reducing the cancer reoccurrence rate while also sparing more normal tissue in the mouth.

Today, Dr. Poh’s team is working on what she calls an oral “pap smear,” with the goal of implementing a regular oral screening program, similar to existing screening for cervical cancer. The oral “pap smear” test works by brushing a lesion suspected of being precancerous. The smear is sent to a centralized lab and scanned to determine if there’s a high chance it is precancerous, in which case a biopsy would be ordered.

“The goal is to catch precancerous cells as soon as possible,” says Dr. Poh. “There are many specialists in Vancouver but not many throughout the rest of BC, so we want to make this type of care accessible to everyone. We have built a mobile outreach clinic to provide access and a standard of care to those in rural and remote communities. We are also developing a telehealth program for oral cancer and precancer screening to empower clinicians so their patients can access care closer to home.”