What Makes Tongue Cancer So Insidious?

A diagnosis of cancer – any kind of cancer – is a life-altering experience. You become an instant cancer survivor. Your self-image changes. The way others treat you changes. Relationships with loved ones change. Everything changes when your doctor says those dreaded words – you have cancer.

However, today, cancer survival rates continue to rise. Medical and pharmaceutical professionals are discovering more and better treatments. And, thanks to advancements in robotic surgical technology and radiation therapy, people are living with cancer – long, happy lives. In fact, many cancer survivors tell poll takers that receiving that horrible diagnosis changed their lives for the better. Why?

Because these men and women appreciate every day in ways that non-cancer patients never can. Most of us take each day for granted. We take good health for granted. Ask any cancer survivor how they feel about today. It’s great to be alive.

The Insidious Nature of Tongue Cancer

36,000 of us will be told that we have tongue cancer or some other form of oral cancer in 2010 and the disease will take 8,000 lives. Part of the reason that tongue cancer is so insidious is that the symptoms are difficult, even impossible, to detect until the disease is in its latest stages. In other words, the cancer isn’t caught early.

The best outcomes for tongue cancer treatments occur when the disease is caught early. This often occurs during routine dental examinations – recommended every six months along with a cleaning, or through a visit to the family doctor’s office. Medical and dental professionals are trained to look for signs of tongue, mouth and throat cancer and for good reason.

Those of us who do get tongue cancer may not know it until the condition is in an advanced stages. Here’s why.

Tongue Cancer Doesn’t Hurt

Some forms of cancer cause physical pain – the body’s warning system that something is amiss. For example, kidney cancer often causes lower back pain early in the development of the disease. So, thinking s/he has a bad back, these patients visit a physician. And though they receive a completely different and unanticipated diagnosis, the disease is caught early and the cancerous kidney can be removed laparoscopically through the patient’s belly button.

This shortens recovery times and places less strain on the body so healing occurs faster and outcomes are improved. So are survival rates.

One problem with tongue and other oral cancers is that, often, there’s no pain involved. It doesn’t hurt. You might even think that lump at the base of your tongue was caused when you burned your mouth on the pizza the other night!

Because tongue and other oral cancers don’t cause discomfort, we’re less apt to seek treatment early.

Solution: Schedule a regular visit to your dentist every six months. And if you’re over the age of 40, smoke and/or drink alcohol, chew tobacco or have a history of oral cancer in your family tree, see a physician once a year for a quick glance at the interior of your mouth.

The medical or dental professional will look for certain white patches of skin that may or may not indicate the presence of cancer. (Maybe you DID burn your mouth on last night’s pizza.) On the other hand, if there’s an obvious lesion or other identifier, these professionals will detect the problem early so you can get treatment early – the best the earliest.

The Mouth Is Always Changing

The mouth is a very active organ. We use it to consume food, talk, breathe, start the digestive process and (blush) kiss – to show affection. So, the mouth is a very busy organ – one we use every day throughout the day to perform a number of functions.

As a result, the interior of the mouth changes throughout the day. You wake up with morning breath. You brush, have coffee and a bagel, you talk to the kids, you breathe as you do your morning jog, you chatter throughout the day, drink water and other liquids – the mouth is going pretty much all day long.

Salivary glands that line the cheeks and gums produce saliva 24/7. And your esophagus (gullet) is moving constantly, though you probably don’t feel this peristalsis because it’s constant.

Any way, because the mouth and throat are active all day and into the night, you have dry mouth, too much saliva (night drools), a sore cheek where you bit yourself last week, a canker sore or even a herpes outbreak. Your mouth changes all the time.

So, this makes any changes that might indicate a problem with cancer almost imperceptible! There’s always something going on in there so, unless the disease causes some kind of pain or problem, you may not even notice it.

The Sad But True Fact About Tongue Cancer

Tongue cancer has a disproportionately high death rate. That’s the sad but true fact.

However, it’s not that tongue cancer is difficult to diagnose. In fact, a trained eye can spot possible problems BEFORE they become problems. Discovery AND diagnosis of tongue cancer is actually easy.

The problem is, by the time the disease has been diagnosed, the cancer has metastasized. It’s migrated to another part of the body, most commonly the lymph nodes located in the neck. From here, the cancer can quickly spread throughout the body, offering poorer outcomes when treatment is finally undertaken.

In addition, because the painless tongue tumor has remained undetected for so long, it has had the opportunity to establish itself deep into the tongue’s soft tissue – painlessly.

So, oral cancers, like tongue cancer, aren’t difficult to detect or diagnose. A simple visual inspection is all that’s required when conducted by a dental or medical professional. The danger is in the insidious nature of tongue cancer. It doesn’t hurt, it’s “just the way things are” and it occurs in a place of almost constant change throughout the day.

If You Get That Diagnosis

Yes, it WILL change your life. That’s inevitable. However, quick action also offers the best outcomes. Those who have been diagnosed with tongue or oral cancer are 20 times more likely to see a recurrence of the disease. That’s a rude awakening.

More significantly, the recurrence is most likely to occur between five and 10 years after the initial tongue cancer diagnosis. So a pro-active approach to prevention is, indeed, the best “cure.”

For those who have been diagnosed with oral cancel, regular visits to the dentist or family doctor now become the norm. However, the diagnosis of tongue or other oral cancers is no longer a death sentence. Today, many people live long, active lives with various forms of oral cancer thanks to computer-aided surgery, improved medications and more specific, accurate radiation treatments.

So what about you? What should you do? Well, if you haven’t received a diagnosis of oral cancer, change your lifestyle. Quit smoking. Quit consuming as much alcohol and, of course, wear lip balm when exposed to the sun. A broad-brimmed hat that keeps the sun’s damaging rays away from your face is also a proactive step you can take to prevent mouth cancer from ever developing.

Here’s the “take to the bank” bottom line: if you have a lesion or notice a change in the way your mouth feels, your tongue feels or even in the way you speak and that change lasts two weeks or longer, it’s time to schedule a visit with your family doc or friendly dental professional. Use the two-week rule whenever you notice a change in the feel of your tongue, cheeks, gums or throat.

And if that lesion doesn’t heal by itself, if your mouth doesn’t return to normal in two weeks…

…it’s time to pick up the phone and make an appointment to see a medical or dental professional.

If it IS cancer, the earlier you start treatment the better the outcomes. And if it isn’t cancer, you can relax – until the next time you feel a change that lasts more than two weeks.

Be your own, best advocate for good oral health. Take charge of keeping your tongue, cheeks, gums, larynx and other mouth and throat organs healthy.

Take charge and remember, you may have cancer, but cancer NEVER has you.