How difficult is it to diagnose tongue cancer

Tongue cancer is an uncommon type of cancer, but it is the most common type of oral cancer. It is common at the tip and edge of the tongue. Generally speaking, it is more common in men than in women. In today's life, with the improvement of living standards, we pay more and more attention to cancer, and we need to be more aware of the early symptoms of cancer and the difficulty of diagnosis. Today we will introduce the difficulty of diagnosing tongue cancer.

Tongue cancer is the most common oral cancer, and it occurs more often 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 carcinoma may also occur at the root of the tongue. Tongue cancer mostly 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 invasive. It often affects 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 posteriorly. In the late stage, tongue cancer can spread to the floor of the mouth and jawbone, fixing the entire tongue.

In the early stage, tongue cancer can present as three types: ulceration, exogenesis and invasion.

Comparison of tongue cancer before and after treatment In some cases, the first symptom is only tongue pain, which can sometimes be reflected to the temporal region or ear. The exophytic type may come from the malignant transformation of papilloma. The infiltrative type may have no protrusions or ulcers on the surface, which is most likely to delay the disease, and patients often cannot detect it early.

Tongue cancer often presents with ulcers and infiltration, accompanied by spontaneous pain and varying degrees of tongue movement disorders. In the late stage of tongue cancer, it can directly exceed the midline or invade the floor of the mouth, as well as infiltrate the lingual periosteum, bone plate or bone of the mandible. It can extend backward to the root of the tongue or the anterior pillar of the pharynx and the lateral wall of the pharynx. At this time, the movement of the tongue can be severely restricted and fixed, and the saliva increases and overflows, and it cannot be controlled. Eating, swallowing, and speaking are all difficult. The pain is severe and can be reflected to half of the head. The lymph node metastasis rate of tongue cancer is relatively high, usually around 40%. The most common metastatic site is the deep cervical lymph node group. In the late stage of tongue cancer, lung metastasis or distant metastasis to other parts may occur.

The diagnosis of tongue cancer is generally easy, but we should be vigilant for early stage tongue cancer, especially the invasive type. Palpation is more important than inspection for the diagnosis of tongue cancer. Biopsy should be performed to confirm the diagnosis. According to data from my country, the 3-5 year survival rate of surgical treatment is generally above 60%; for T1 cases, it can reach above 90%.