Animation showing how tongue cancer is removed via wedge excision and then closed primarily. Small to medium sized tongue cancer is amenable to this type of surgical approach where up to 1/3 of the tongue can be removed without affecting speech and swallow as long as nerve function remains intact and the tongue tip is left alone. If the tongue tip is removed, far less tongue can be removed before it will start to affect speech. Why? Because the tongue tip is used to help articulate words. How much can be removed before it starts to affect speech depends on the tongue length and shape. Swallow is typically unaffected. If more than 1/3 of the tongue is removed, some degree of reconstruction will be required involving taking skin and muscle from the forearm to fill the space lost to the tongue resection (procedure is called radial forearm free flap).
The most common type of tongue cancer is squamous cell carcinoma.
More info on mouth masses:
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Tongue cancer time lapse:
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Video produced by Dr. Chris Chang:
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Music Background:
Dark Hallway by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. [ Ссылка ]
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