Ask any experienced plaintiffs lawyer if they ever handled a dental malpractice case, and the answer is almost always in the negative. Unfortunately, many lawyers have concluded that the potential damages are not enough to make dental malpractice cases worth pursuing. But while that might be true in some circumstances, there is a subset of lucrative cases that are hiding in plain sight of not only the lawyer, but also the medical practitioner. In these cases, a dentist, dental specialist or ears, nose and throat (ENT) doctor failed to consider what appeared to be a benign oral lesion as a potentially far more serious finding.

About 54,540 new cases of oral cavity or oropharyngeal cancer (back of the throat, including the base of the tongue and tonsils) will be diagnosed in the United States this year, according to the American Cancer Society. About 11,580 people in the United States will die from oral cavity or oropharyngeal cancer in 2023.