Tongue Biopsy

kingcole42005
kingcole42005 Member Posts: 178
in Head and Neck Cancer #1
I had mucoepidermoid carcinoma of my left submandibular. Finished treatment (surgery & radiation) Jan. 2011, have had clear PET/MRI since. My question is I recently found a lump on my tongue on the underside the same side as the cancer. I went to my onco, who ordered a MRI and wants to see me in a month, or if the lump is getting bigger. I believe the lump is getting bigger and he mentioned a biopsy. I would like to know if anyone else has gone through this procedure and what to expect if it does happen, pain, procedure etc. Thanks in advance for any responses! Shelly

Comments

  • artheri
    artheri Member Posts: 14
    #2
    biopsy
    I had a tongue biopsy done in november 2011. I had a sore on the right edge of my tongue, and they did a biopsy of the sore. What they did was first injecting anestetic, which wasn't as painful as I feared (I hate needles with a passion). They then cut a small part of the tongue/affected tissue away, which was completely painless of course. My sore was very painful before the biopsy so I was taking Paralgin Forte already. Continued on that after the biopsy and it was enough to control the pain from the biopsy cut as well. You don't mention that you've got any sores though, so maybe they need to do a different type of biopsy on your tongue. I would suspect that if it's sitting deep/deeper for you, they might do the same type of biopsy as they do for lymph nodes biopsies, where they insert a needle into the suspected tumor and the tip of the needle "bites" off a part. I've had this done on 6 lymph nodes, without any form of anestesia, and it was horribly painful. Hope you get some anestetics if that's what they'll do.

    (My first post here, hopefully it is somewhat of a help) :)
  • shoemandan1
    shoemandan1 Member Posts: 19
    #3
    I had a similar experience
    I also had a surgery and radiation on the left side of my neck and finish treatment in July of 2011.in Oct. I notice a white spot on the left side of my tongue and had my onco take a look at it. He determined that it was just a calice that was cause from rubbing on my teeth and did not want to do a biopsy.Well this past Jan. I go to the dental school for some work and the student who was working on me was concern right away about the spot. she got the head dentist and surgeon who said I need to have it biopsied as soon as possible.So I went back to my onco and had it biopsied.
    what they did was use a needle and gave me a local anistetic and numbed it up real good and than use a tool and cut part of it out and sent it out for a biopsy. I did stop at big boy on the way home for breakfast,just had to be real careful that I didn't bite my tongue being that it was still parceley numbed.It hurt for a couple of day ,wasn't too bad. To make a long
    story short it came back negative ,but it was worth it just for peace of mind.
    I hope this has help you.compared to what you have been through its not bad, a little sore for a few days.

    take care and may God bless Dan
  • kingcole42005
    kingcole42005 Member Posts: 178
    #4
    shoemandan1 said:

    I had a similar experience
    I also had a surgery and radiation on the left side of my neck and finish treatment in July of 2011.in Oct. I notice a white spot on the left side of my tongue and had my onco take a look at it. He determined that it was just a calice that was cause from rubbing on my teeth and did not want to do a biopsy.Well this past Jan. I go to the dental school for some work and the student who was working on me was concern right away about the spot. she got the head dentist and surgeon who said I need to have it biopsied as soon as possible.So I went back to my onco and had it biopsied.
    what they did was use a needle and gave me a local anistetic and numbed it up real good and than use a tool and cut part of it out and sent it out for a biopsy. I did stop at big boy on the way home for breakfast,just had to be real careful that I didn't bite my tongue being that it was still parceley numbed.It hurt for a couple of day ,wasn't too bad. To make a long
    story short it came back negative ,but it was worth it just for peace of mind.
    I hope this has help you.compared to what you have been through its not bad, a little sore for a few days.

    take care and may God bless Dan

    Well thank you for taking the time to answer.
    You were both very helpful. Not looking forward to it. Don't have much confidence in all this. Last time I was told for 3 years it wasn't cancer, boy were they wrong.

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