Beware of uneven teeth that may cause tongue cancer. How can we prevent tongue cancer?

Tongue cancer usually occurs at the edge of the tongue, followed by the tip, back and root of the tongue, and is often ulcerative or infiltrative. It is generally highly malignant, grows fast, and is highly infiltrative, often affecting the tongue muscles, resulting in limited tongue movement, making it difficult to speak, eat and swallow. Tongue cancer can invade the palatoglossal arch and tonsils backwards. In the late stage, tongue cancer can spread to the floor of the mouth and jawbone, fixing the entire tongue.

What causes tongue cancer?

86% of young and middle-aged tongue squamous cell carcinomas are related to the patients' tooth deformities, and the affected part of the tongue has a history of frequent contact with the teeth tilted inward. Among the 65 tongue cancer patients aged 26-39 surveyed, 56 patients had teeth tilted or protruded toward the tongue, that is, there was an abnormal contact between the teeth and the affected part of the tongue. Among them, 37 patients felt that their teeth often collided and rubbed with the affected part before the onset of tongue cancer, forming chronic damage to the tongue, and some of them could not be cured for a long time.

Experts believe that long-term contact and wear of the teeth on the tongue can cause chronic lesions to form locally on the tongue; young and middle-aged men smoke and drink more, and these complex harmful factors stimulate and damage the tongue lesions for a long time, which can gradually deform the tissue cells in the tongue lesions and may eventually lead to cancer.

Medical experts warn people that once they find protruding or crooked teeth, deformed teeth, wisdom teeth that grow rapidly toward the tip of the tongue, and abnormal arrangement, especially long-term contact, friction, or biting between the teeth and the tongue, they should pay close attention and go to the hospital's dental department for examination as soon as possible to undergo necessary orthopedic treatment to prevent problems before they occur.

Tongue cancer is the most common oral cancer, more common in men than in women. Most tongue cancers are squamous cell carcinomas, especially in the front 2/3 of the tongue. Adenocarcinomas are less common and are mostly located at the root of the tongue. Lymphoepithelial carcinoma and undifferentiated carcinomas can also occur at the root of the tongue. Tongue cancers mostly occur at the edge of the tongue, followed by the tip, back and root of the tongue, and are often ulcerative or infiltrative.

So how do we prevent tongue cancer?

1. Quit bad habits such as smoking and drinking; strengthen physical exercise, improve nutrition, eat more fresh fruits rich in vitamins and with anti-cancer and anti-cancer effects, which are also very important for preventing and caring for the occurrence of tongue cancer.

2. Things to note: Oral hygiene: brush your teeth every morning and evening, and rinse your mouth after meals; have 1-2 oral clinical diagnostic examinations each year, and treat tooth and periodontal diseases in a timely manner. If lesions are found, they should be removed as soon as possible.

3. If there are cavities, they should be filled early; residual crowns and roots that can be repaired should be dealt with in time to restore the normal anatomical shape of the teeth as soon as possible; residual crowns and roots that are difficult to cure should be removed in time and replaced with dentures on time even if there are no symptoms such as inflammation and pain.

4. Grind the sharp non-functional cusps and marginal ridges to make the cusps and marginal ridges on the occlusal surface of the crown rounded and blunt to avoid damaging the lingual marginal tissue.

5. If benign lesions or precancerous pathological changes are found, such as papilloma of the tongue or putrefactive lichen planus, they should be removed and biopsied in time, or actively treated and observed regularly.

The prevention of oral cancer lies in reducing external stimuli, actively treating precancerous lesions, and improving the body's disease resistance. With the improvement of modern treatment technology, the treatment of oral cancer has achieved good results. Many patients, after learning that they have oral cancer, often think that it is an incurable disease and do not actively seek treatment, or have a fluke mentality and hope to rely on some folk remedies for treatment, which delays the disease and loses the opportunity for treatment. Early detection and early treatment should be emphasized, and comprehensive treatment should be given priority. Comprehensive and systematic treatment should be carried out in combination with other treatment methods on the basis of surgical treatment, which is expected to achieve good treatment results. In addition, tongue cancer is the most easily metastatic type of oral cancer. It is generally advocated to perform selective (preventive) neck lymph node dissection at the same time as surgery (that is, lymph node dissection on the affected side is performed before any symptoms of lymph node metastasis are found clinically). Clinical observation results show that the cure rate of patients who undergo selective neck dissection at the same time is higher than that of therapeutic neck dissection performed after neck lymph node metastasis is found.