Hi everybody. I have been reading all the posts here for quite a number of months now. I am a 43 year old female and several months ago I went to the doctor because I happened to see this round, raised lump on the side/top of my tongue. She said it looked like lymphatic tissue not to worry. Instead of not worrying, I decided to educate myself and go online and came across this forum, so I took most of the advice here and went and saw my dentist, who agreed with my MD. Still not quite comfortable with his diagnosis I decided to see an ENT who also said did not look cancerous. I felt very confident that it was not, so did not immediately follow-up on it with a biopsy. I figured how can ALL 3 of them be wrong. So last week I started some dental work, went again today and mouth was sore so just decided to look inside. What do I see, but the lump still on my tongue and on the side-no change however, just behind it, I see this round lump as though its a tonsil, however, I had my tonsils removed when I was 3 years old. This brings me back to this forum. I know what youre all going to say, go get a biopsy to see what it is BEFORE I start to panic. Just wondering if any of you had such things happen. I have been going through all kinds of blood work and CBC with Differentail comes up good except for one or two liver enzymes being a lil too high, so if it were cancerous would there be some indication in my bloodwork. Also had a neck x-ray about 2 weeks ago looking at my spine, sideways view, frontal and even had me open up my mouth which I found very strange and was told everything looks normal. True they werent looking at my tongue, but would something have been found or at least suspicious. Also last year I was told I had a nodule on my thyroid, so went to an endocrinologist in Jan. for a f/u and he said that the nodule has not change still 3mm. come back in a year. I guess what Im grasping at here is, if I did have tongue or throat cancer, would it have shown up on the thyroid sonogram or the neck x-ray. Any opinions would be appreciated. Thank you all in advance, and God Bless.

Maria,

From everything you say and your questions, it sounds as though you do not feel you have investigated this enough. I would tend to agree with you and do not stop until you have peace of mind. As Brian Hill has pointed out numerous times, sores in the mouth should heal in a matter of days, not months. Panic does not help but you should see an ENT that specializes in treating cancer as his/her trained eye and experience will dictate what should be done. Nothing confirms this cancer except a pathologist examining a specimen under a microscope.

Good luck and best wishes for a negative path report.

Ed

I don't know if a sonogram or xray can detect oral cancers. My understanding is that in order for a scan (CT, MRI or PET, not xray or sonogram) to detect this cancer, it has be a contrasted scan. Which means they inject you with a contrasting agent and take the scan. Because cancer cells have a higher metabolic rate than normal cells, the contrasting agent tends to collect in those cells and "light up" in the scan. That being said, they should be able to stick a needle in the suspected mass and extract some cells from it for pathological review. This is known as a Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA). The FNA method was how my cancer was initially diagnosed. I hope this helps and best of luck.

-Brett

Thank you Brett and Ed for your responses. I am hoping for the best, but will deal with whatever comes my way. I just hope I have not waited too long, this is truly my concern. If it is cancer it is cancer, I deal with it, I just dont want it to kill me. Keeping fingers crossed...

X-rays will not diagnose oral cancer, though they can be helpful in hard tissue cancers, sonograms work in some cases in stomach cancers if there is other symptomology that might support what they find, but they don't work for oral cancers. You can have no change in a normal blood panel (what you have had) and still have cancer. They need to be looking for specific markers which are a test unto themselves. The only way you are going to have piece of mind is though a biopsy. If you have a hard spot in your tongue that is a bad sign, and it wouldn't show up in an x-ray, but could be felt by some knowledgeable fingers, or picked up in an MRI or CT with contrast. The testing that you have been through isn't specific enough for what you want to be looking for. Perhaps what is going on with you is nothing, but as the posts above say...there is only one way to know for sure.

I'm a huge believer in pushing doctors to give you the tests/treatments you need. Good for you for not accepting their answers yet!! I agree with everyone - and don't just request a biopsy, REQUIRE one!!

There's no harm in being too cautious with these things.

Go gettum!
Sabrina

My sister-in-law had a patch on her tongue for weeks and the oral surgeon (dentist) lasered it off and told her based on the path there was nothing to worry about. The path report said "Epithelial dysplasia, mild, with hyperkeratosis." The ENT said this is certainly something that should be monitored about every 6 weeks and said this path could be consistent with the marginal area of SCC tumors. You are right, Sabrina, you can never be too cautious and pushing now could be the difference between life and death.

Ed