Oral Cancer
Oral cancer is cancer in the tissues of the oral cavity (mouth). It also includes cancer of the oropharynx, which is the throat part at the rear of the mouth.
Cancer is a disease that occurs in cells. It is a disorder of the cells. In this disorder, normal cells undergo a change such that they do not die as would occur from time to time under normal circumstances. The disorder is also characterized by the formation of new cells when they are not needed by the body.
As a result of the disorder, there gradually occurs a majority of still-living non-functional abnormal cells, which form a growing mass known as a tumor.
Two presentations of such tumors have been found, namely benign and malignant.
Benign tumors grow, but are by themselves generally harmless and are usually not a threat to life. This part of the disorder of cells is easily resolved through surgical removal of such benign tumors.
Sometimes, it may occur that even after their surgical removal, benign tumors may grow back, but this is generally not the case. Benign tumors do not attack normal functional cells in their vicinity. Further, benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body.
Therefore, benign tumors are a presentation of a disorder in cells, which are not cancerous, which means life threatening.
The other presentation of the disorder in cells is that of malignant tumors. The characteristic features of malignant tumors is that they are life threatening. Malignant tumors are really malignant abnormal cells that attack normal cells and convert them into their own kind.
Further, malignant cells grow very fast and spread to other parts of the body very fast, till gradually the number of malignant cells reaches such proportions that the body’s normal functioning is hampered and slowly and steadily the condition of a person becomes serious. When this cancer reaches an advanced stage, a person affected by it will die even after receiving the best treatment.
Oral cancers generally begin in the tongue and in the floor of the mouth. The surface of the mouth, tongue and are lined with squamous cells The cancers that afflict these cells are known as squamous cell carcinomas.
The spread of cancer is known as metastasization. When oral cancer metastasizes, it traverses through the lymphatic system. In the lymphatic system is a watery fluid known as lymph. Lymph nodes in the neck are locations, in which cancer cells first appear.
From here cancer cells metastasize to other parts of the body that include the lungs and parts of the neck. When this occurs, new tumors that appear in other parts of the body have the same type of abnormal cells that have been present in the primary oral cancer tumor.
Further, certain people tend to develop oral cancer more than others. Risk factors that contribute towards oral cancer include tobacco (both the chewing and the smoking kind), alcohol, and sunburned lips.