Prognosis

A prognosis is a prediction of the outcome of one’s disease. How likely is survival? Will the cancer come back? These are the big questions on most people’s minds after receiving a diagnosis of tongue cancer. In general, there are several characteristics of the tumor that can inform a patient about their chances of being cured.

Factors That Affect Prognosis

Stage

This is the most important factor that affects a patient’s chance of being cured.

Site

The location of the tumor in the oral cavity can affect the surgeon’s ability to resect the tumor with adequate margins of healthy tissue around it.

Type and Grade

Both the type and grade of the tumor determine the amount of treatment necessary and the ultimate prognosis.

Spread to Lymph Nodes

This helps determine stage, but even without other factors, spread to lymph nodes in the neck decrease the chance of cure, especially if there is evidence of growth of cancer outside of the lymph node.

Tumor Margins

The ability to completely remove the tumor with a margin of normal tissue around it can be a very important factor in a patient’s prognosis.

Spread into Local Structures

Spread into large nerves, skin, and bone has been shown to indicate a worse prognosis.

While each of these factors contributes to one’s outcome, patients should have a discussion with their doctor to determine their overall prognosis. Giving a percentage of survival is challenging because cancer research often looks at multiple types of cancer and may include a large range of patients who underwent a variety of treatments. 

Survival Rates for Patients with Tongue Cancer

Stage I

Disease-Specific Survival at Five Years

76%

Disease-Specific Survival at Ten Years

65%

Stage II

Disease-Specific Survival at Five Years

58%

Disease-Specific Survival at Ten Years

41%

Stage III

Disease-Specific Survival at Five Years

39%

Disease-Specific Survival at Ten Years

27%

Stage IV

Disease-Specific Survival at Five Years

27%

Disease-Specific Survival at Ten Years

17%

Disclaimer: Estimated Disease-Specific Survival is the percentage of people with a specific cancer who are alive at a given time point, such as five years after diagnosis. It excludes people who may have died from a disease other than their cancer. It is probably the best estimate we have in these large national databases as to the prognosis of a particular type of cancer at each stage.

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