Archives of The Cheerful Oncologist, Volume 2

Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.

-Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1

“New research shows that smokers are more likely than nonsmokers to get root canals.”

Whadda lollapalooza! Now don’t get me wrong, folks, as a practicing medical oncologist I am extremely sensitive to the ravages of smoking-related illnesses. It’s just that in The Examining Room of Dr. H. [with apologies to our literary colleague languishing in some undisclosed location in the East] when I set out to punish a disease caused by Old Man Tobacco the stakes are higher than saving a rotten tooth. Nevertheless this is an interesting headline. It seems that folks who smoke for longer than twelve years are twice as likely to need a root canal procedure, and even smokers of just a few years are more likely to find something rotten in the state of dentition, based on a review of x-rays of smokers vs. non-smokers.

Hmm…here’s an interesting quote from the story:

“The x-rays [showing root canal surgery] don’t show why cigarette smokers were more likely than nonsmokers to get root canals. ‘We couldn’t in this study determine what the biological mechanisms might be,’ [Boston University dental professor Dr. Elizabeth] Kaye says.”

Nope, we’ve got no idea why smokin’ them unfiltered Luckies would erode yer teeth as efficiently as an Arizona creek with 6 million years to kill. Oh, wait - the authors do have a hypothesis after all:

“Smoking makes it harder to fend off infections. Smoking increase inflammation. Smoking damages the circulation system and lowers oxygen levels.” And that’s just for starters!

At least the researchers were able to put a positive spin on this startling revelation about the evils of smoking. Says Dr. Kaye, “There is good news from this study for people who do smoke, and that is that if you quit, your risk of root canal treatment will go down.” Now there’s a conclusion refreshingly free from the moral ambiguity and please-don’t-hit-me spineless equivocation heard daily in scores of discussions occurring in places like a midtown Manhattan bar. You tell ‘em, Doc!

So stopping smoking might just save the canals of your pearly whites - hey, whatever works. Maybe we should be putting up billboards on Times Square showing the consequences of years of running with the fashionable crowd. It’s just that I can’t help but feel the sly grin of irony spreading across my face when I read that dentists are now being admonished to refer their patients to stop smoking clinics, and provide them with nicotine patches. I applaud their rectitude and wish them Godspeed in their mission to reduce the rate of smoking in this country.

I won’t exactly start looking for another line of work, though. I’ve seen too many people who simply will not stop smoking - not after watching their spouse die from a tobacco-related cancer, not even after surviving cancer themselves. How can we expect them to eschew the dastardly banes just to avoid wearing the bastardly panes - dentures, that is.

Unless, of course, vanity is a stronger motivator than life itself.