Cancer prevention.

Increasing attention is being paid to cancer prevention as the best and most cost-effective way to address the cancer problem. Efforts have focused on the modification of high-risk behavior as well as the development of chemoprevention agents that may reduce or modify the development of cancer. In each of the areas of cancer prevention research, specific studies and trials have been and are being performed in oropharyngeal cancers. These include extensive programs of behavior modification such as smoking cessation and studies of synthetic retinoids and other chemopreventative agents in head and neck cancers, esophageal cancer, and other oropharyngeal cancers. One of the problems that compromises this effort is the distorted public perception of risk where rare risk factors are often given more emphasis than the more important dangers such as alcohol and tobacco use.