Hi,

My father had oral cancer over a year ago. The doctors started the treatment process since March 2002. He went through 10 weeks radiation from March 2002 to May 2002. The result after the radiation was not so good. During the time
my father also had 4 courses of chemo until June. My father's body could not take that type of chemo.(not sure the name of the chemo). The doctors change the recipe and give my father 10 more courses of new type of chemo. Not sure
but I think is Gleevec. My father finished the chemo November 2002. Amazingly, the cancer stopped and from the MRI, the cancer is not growing any more. So my father is recovering from the radiation and chemo.

During February of this year, my father had problem with his facial muscles which is very weak and it almost become paralyzed. Sometimes, he could not close his right eye-lid all the way which causes infection to his eye. The doctors said my father could have either:

1) Side effect for the radiation. The radiation might have interfere with the facial muscles and tissues. or
2) Bell's Palsy.

I would like to ask people in this group that:

1) Could it be possible that the radiation cause damage to the facial muscles and tissues? Is it common for the oral-cancer patients who have
radiation.
2) If so, is this permanent?
3) If it's Bell's Palsy, would it be complicate to treat a person who had oral-cancer and radiation before?

If anyone has any suggestion, please let me know. I really appreciate. My family is really frustrated what is going with my father now.

Thank you very much.

Charlie

I can only address part of your question as I have similar issues and that relates to radiation damage to the nerves of the face post treatment. 3-5% of radiated patients, depending on the dosages they have received, will have some radiation induced cranial and facial nerve damage as a result of their treatments. In some patients this nerve damage can mimic the loss of muscle control which is caused by strokes, and causes a portion of the face to droop. In my own situation it causes fasciculations, which are abrupt jumping of the muscles of both the face and neck, in my instance particularly of the neck. I have been told that this nerve damage is most likely permanent.

What I would like you to be careful of, and explore to the furthest extent possible, is the possibility that this may be caused by a lesion that is impacting the nerve which supplies that portion of the face or neck. That was my biggest concern when all this started for me. A malignant lesion that was not removed at the time of the original treatment, or that is a recurrence from that original cancer. These malignant lesions can cause the very same symptoms that you are describing.

Please do not immediately think the worst here. I only wish to see that you consider all possibilities, before assuming that it is something like Palsy. While it is a possible cause, in the list of things that a doctor must rule out that cause very similar symptoms, I always like to see that the deadly ones are removed off the list of possibilities first. After that I can deal with the ones that provide an inconvenience to life. The patient who survives cancer is one who explores all the possibilities when things arise, and when necessary obtains second opinions to confirm that those diagnoses, which have different possible causes, are actually what the original diagnostician believes is true. You want to be sure what is causing this situation. An answer is frequently obtained through the process of elimination. Since you have said that the cancer has stopped growing, I am making the assumption that it is not completely gone. Given that, you should be sure that what you are seeing is not a manifestation of the cancer rather than Palsy.