Dental cancer generally refers to gum cancer, and this kind of patients are mainly treated by surgery, which can be supplemented by radiotherapy to improve the therapeutic effect of the patients, and some patients also need to undergo cervical lymph node dissection surgery.
1. Surgical treatment:
(1) Early stage patients: if the lesion of mandibular gingival cancer is limited to the superficial part of alveolar eminence, rectangular or alveolar eminence resection can be made to protect the lower edge of the mandible; maxillary gingival cancer can be resected with low maxillary bone below the level of apical and palatal bone of the affected side; if the tumor has already invaded the bone marrow cavity, segmental mandibular resection is needed.
(2) Intermediate-stage patients: Half side mandibular resection is often needed; during the operation, it is often necessary to cut the patient’s trachea, and the chances of facial deformity and dysfunction are higher after the operation.
(3) Advanced patients: whether surgical resection can be performed depends on the invasion of the tumor into the buccal and lingual soft tissues as well as backward to the infratemporal fossa. Some patients with temporal fossa involvement combined with inability to speak cannot be treated surgically.
2. Radiotherapy: it can be applied before or after surgery, which can effectively improve the survival rate of patients within 5 years after surgery.
3. Cervical lymph node dissection: patients with enlarged cervical lymph nodes need to follow the doctor’s instruction to choose classical neck dissection, maxillo-cervical combined radical surgery, scapulohyoid muscle upper neck dissection and so on for treatment.
It is recommended that patients with gingival cancer should consult doctor in time and follow doctor’s instruction for treatment to improve the prognosis.