Typically, mouth cancer is suspected when patients or their dentists notice symptoms such as the following:

• A sore that does not heal
• White or red patches
• Persistent and unexplained pain, numbness or bleeding
• Swelling

Diagnosis often requires a biopsy or removal of a tiny part of abnormal tissue. This allows our pathologists to provide a precise diagnosis. 

Your care plan will involve one or more of the following treatments:

• Surgery
• Radiation therapy
• Chemotherapy or cancer-killing drugs
• Other drug therapies, such as immunotherapy

For oral cancer, surgery is often the best treatment choice for ensuring the ability to taste, chew, speak, and swallow. 

Our highly experienced head and neck surgeons take a thoughtful and targeted approach to surgery. We only remove tissue that has cancer in it. Our surgeons are also highly experienced in facial and oral cavity reconstruction to restore speech and swallowing function following the removal of cancers.