Clinics and Health Fairs

Located at the Vancouver General Hospital, the combined Ear, Nose and Throat and Oral Medicine/Pathology referral clinic is new for patients with oral cancer and pre-cancers in the Greater Vancouver area. This translational integrative, innovative and interdisciplinary Clinic is for the triage of patients with oral cancer and pre-malignant lesions. There is a growing recognition for the need to develop new strategies for oral cancer control. Oral cancer is a major health problem and on average, half of the patients die within 5 years of an oral cancer diagnosis.  Most troubling, however, is the lack of significant changes in prognosis for the disease over the last 4 decades, even in developed nations. The key to controlling the disease is the identification of lesions that are at high risk of progression, ideally at the pre-cancerous stage and manage them effectively.  A comprehensive plan to integrate, clinical, pathological, imaging and molecular data will be used to develop a more cost-effective approach to triage patients with oral pre-cancers. For example, for those at low risk, the patients should stay in the community and assess at 1- or 3-year intervals at the referral clinic and for those at high risk, depending on the risk assessment results, they can be seen at 3- or 6-month intervals. Through this dynamic follow-up schedule the goal will be to develop a cost-effective prevention strategy and to better control this notorious disease.  Some research we are currently conducting is to determine whether new optical devices can help doctors and dentists identify abnormalities in the mouth that require a closer follow-up.  We are also exploring the possibility of using a brushing or tissue sample to obtain cells for molecular analysis that may predict cancer development.  We hope that in the future, clinicians will be able to monitor changes in oral lesions that are at a high-risk for cancer development by repeated sampling using these optical tools or brushings instead of repeatedly taking a biopsy in the patient’s mouth.  Our long term goal is to discover new knowledge that will improve the management of these mouth lesions. For details on the research activities conducted at this clinic, please visit our Research and Publications page. 

The clinic is located at:

4th Floor Ear nose & Throat Clinic

Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre

2775 Laurel Street, Vancouver, BC, V5Z 1M9

For patient referral, please fax a filled out patient referral form to 1-888-399-2576. 

You can find the clinic referral form at the bottom of this page or in the Downloads section.

For other inquiries or questions, please contact Tony Han at:

Tel: 604-600-9456

Mobile: 604-836-2936 

Fax: 604-675-8263

Email: than@bccrc.ca

S.U.C.C.E.S.S Health Fair