Oral Cancer Treatment
If the tumor is small enough, we recommend surgical excision. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy are used when the tumor is large or has spread to lymph nodes in the neck, although it is not excluded that it is also necessary to resort to surgery when dealing with large tumors that prevent swallowing or breathing. It is called palliative surgery, can improve symptoms but not cure the disease. It is difficult to define precisely the reactions that will result in each treatment for each patient, because these vary considerably from each individual and dependent on the stage where the tumor is located and the specific area that will be addressed. When the node has a considerable size, the surgeon is also required to remove part of the palate, tongue and jaw and vocal cords (in whole or in part), which would also have practical consequences in daily life, can change their physical appearance. Some patients often require an artificial prosthesis or any device to retrieve the speech, others require rehabilitation therapies for language, to learn other ways to communicate or to improve movement, chewing, swallowing and speech. It is sometimes necessary to resort to plastic surgery to rebuild the area.
Weight loss is one of the most visible consequences of such treatments as the intake of food becomes an extremely difficult and painful for the patient. In this case, the doctor should suggest some kind of light diet helps you maintain a healthy and varied diet. The easiest thing is to take soft foods, soups, purees, protein shakes, and anything that is easy to swallow. One trick is to take small amounts of food more frequently instead of three meals plus abundant.
Another curious side effect has to do with the teeth of these patients. During the treatment many of them may no longer use them, and even then some of them are forced to change precisely because the changes that have suffered the tissues of your mouth, a change that knocked out the old ‘teeth’.
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