It’s that time of the year again for Spring Training in beautiful Arizona. This is 7^th season that Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health (ASDOH), will be supporting Major League Baseball in its quest to educate players on the dangers of the use of ST’s (Smokeless Tobacco Products).  In addition, we will be monitoring oral acidity levels (POH) using saliva-testing system from PH2OH site designed by ASDOH. We hope to get some correlation between the ST users and those non-users.  High acid levels can have an effect on the types of anti-inflammatory medications prescribed to the players. Giving a pre-training level of the POH might be of tremendous value to the team physicians.

The event takes place over a period of 5 days extending from February 20th thru March 15th. Dr. Robert Levine, Director of Laser Dentistry, Faculty, pre-doctoral students and other support staff will be conducting their screenings at the Mariners Sports Complex in Peoria, Arizona. This provides a great opportunity for the pre-doctoral students at ASDOH to reach out to the baseball community in their passion for early detection of oral cancer and the correlation of smokeless tobacco products and other associated issues.

Rick Griffin, trainer for the Seattle Mariners and GM, Jack Zduriencik, have always been proactive in the overall health of their baseball players.  Dr. Jack Dillenberg, the faculty and students at ASDOH are excited about supporting their initiatives.  Over the past 6 years, we have reduced the incidence of ST use approximately 40%.