Treatment of precancerous lesions begins with active surveillance, removing any diseased tissue, and stopping any causative agents, like smoking and alcohol abuse.
Leukoplakia is a precancerous white lesion, but more serious lesions include the red-colored erythroplakia which almost always contain severe dysplasia or early cancer.
However, leukoplakia is considered a precancerous condition, meaning that compared to normal tissue, it's more likely to develop into a cancer in the future.
Well, one of the initial studies looking at that idea that heme iron causes cancer, fed calcium deficient rats a heme iron rich diet and found that indeed, these rats developed precancerous lesions in their colon.
If we had that map of the molecular changes of a pre-cancer to a cancer, we could develop ways of finding people that are harboring these precancerous lesions, and then blocking them from ever getting an invasive disease.
As a family, everyone needs to sort of bond together and help treat dad who may be suffering from cancer or who hasn't gone for his precancerous screening. Prevention is so key.