What are the rehabilitation treatments for tongue cancer

Many people don’t know about tongue cancer. Occasional discomfort or limited movement of the tongue is often not thought to be related to tongue cancer. Because of neglect, the condition worsens. When it becomes serious, people don’t realize the seriousness of the problem until they go for a check-up, and miss the good opportunity for treatment. Today we focus on the rehabilitation treatment of tongue cancer:

1. Radiotherapy can be used as an adjuvant treatment before and after surgery for advanced tongue cancer.

2. Surgery is the main method for treating tongue cancer. For T1 cases, wedge-shaped resection more than 1 cm away from the lesion can be performed and sutured directly; for T2-T4 cases, hemiglossectomy or even total glossectomy should be performed. As an important organ for chewing and speech, reconstruction should be performed when more than 1/2 of the tongue is missing.

3. Chemotherapy: Cryotherapy can be considered for T1 and T2 tongue cancer.

4. Traditional Chinese medicine treatment. Traditional Chinese medicine can make up for the deficiencies of surgical treatment, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. It can not only consolidate the effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but also eliminate the toxic side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Tongue cancer is the most common malignant tumor in oral cancer, and its treatment is mainly based on comprehensive treatment. The treatment options for tongue cancer include: chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, interventional therapy, ablation therapy, photodynamic therapy, and radioactive particle implantation, etc.

The main purpose of the comprehensive treatment plan for tongue cancer is to prevent postoperative tumor recurrence and distant metastasis, which is the right direction to improve survival and cure rates. The specific plan is as follows: In the late stage of tongue cancer, a combination of various treatment methods should be used, but all of them are aimed at prolonging survival time and improving quality of life. In the early stage of tongue cancer, radiotherapy, simple surgical resection or photodynamic therapy can be considered. The disadvantages of each are:

Surgery - Speech function is affected after surgery.

Radiotherapy - Oral inflammation during radiotherapy is unbearable, and there are sequelae of radiotherapy such as sore throat and difficulty swallowing.

Photodynamic therapy - can preserve function, without the side effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but has the side effect of photosensitivity.