Will tongue cancer endanger the patient's life?

Will tongue cancer endanger the patient's life? Regarding this question, experts said that whether tongue cancer will endanger the patient's life depends on the severity of the patient's condition. If it is an early-stage tongue cancer patient, as long as the correct treatment is given, generally there is no danger to life. However, there are some dangers of tongue cancer that affect health. Let's take a look at it together.

Generally speaking, a healthy tongue should be light red and moist, with a thin, white, and even coating. Cancer prevention starts with the tongue. When sticking out your mouth, the widest part of the tongue should not exceed the width of the corners of the mouth. When sticking out your mouth, the tongue should not feel too dry or wet. As the disease develops and progresses, the center of the lump will ulcerate and expand to the surrounding tissues. The ulcer is generally cauliflower-shaped, and most of the time the edges are raised.

In addition, tongue cancer is often complicated by infection. In the late stage, it is often complicated by tissue necrosis, bleeding, aspiration pneumonia, and dysphagia. Some patients with tongue cancer may have dysphagia in the early stage. What are the effects of tongue cancer? The pain intensifies when talking and eating, and can spread to the same side of the ear. In the late stage, the tumor infiltrates into the stratum corneum and spreads to the oral cavity, which can limit the movement of the body and cause constipation, causing saliva overflow, and can also cause dysphagia and systemic nutritional disorders.

Tongue cancer can manifest in three early stages: ulceration, exophytic, and infiltrative. 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 the most likely to delay the disease, and patients often cannot detect it early. The tongue and cervical lymph nodes metastasize early, often limited to the pharynx and deep cervical lymph nodes, and the root ulcer can occasionally metastasize to the posterior styloid process and the retropharyngeal lymph nodes. A small number of patients can metastasize through the blood, mostly to the lungs.

Finally, tongue cancer can also cause tongue movement disorders, 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 mandibular bone. Backward, it can extend to the root of the tongue or the anterior pharyngeal pillar and lateral wall of the pharynx. At this time, tongue movement can be severely restricted and fixed, saliva increases and overflows, and it cannot be controlled, and eating, swallowing, and speaking are all difficult.