SAN ANTONIO, Aug. 8, 2024 – As a high school football team dentist back when he was in private practice, Scott Stafford was performing a preseason checkup when he noticed a growth in the palate of a player’s mouth.
It turned out that the 17-year-old had a giant-cell granuloma, a very evasive and fast-moving tumor that, left undetected, could have resulted in the player losing his entire upper jaw. This, even though the boy had seen his regular dentist only four months earlier.
Preventive dental screenings are not considered part of preseason physicals for athletic teams, but through partnerships, the UT Health San Antonio School of Dentistry has made those exams and custom mouth-guard fittings routine for UTSA football and the San Antonio Spurs. Most of the screenings don’t turn up tumors, but they do uncover important dental health issues like infections or wisdom teeth that need to be removed. And according to dental health experts, better now than during the season.