Health Topic

Oral Cancer

Oral cancer can form in the mouth or throat but usually begins in the tongue and floor of the mouth. Read about the common oral cancer symptoms.

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Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Oral Cancer

Oral cancer is cancer of the mouth. It is a type of head and neck cancer. Most oral cancers are squamous cell cancers. They begin in the flat cells that cover the surfaces of your mouth, tongue, and lips. The cancer cells may spread into deeper tissue as the cancer grows.

Most oral cancers are related to tobacco use, heavy alcohol use, or an HPV infection.

Anyone can get oral cancer, but you are more likely to develop it if you:

  • Use tobacco or drink lots of alcohol. Your risk of developing oral cancer is even higher if you do both.
  • Are male.
  • Are over ago 40.
  • Have HPV.
  • Have a history of head or neck cancer.
  • Get frequent sun exposure (for lip cancer).

The symptoms of oral cancer may include:

  • A white or red patch in your mouth
  • A lip or mouth sore that won't heal
  • Bleeding, pain, or numbness in the lip or mouth
  • Loose teeth or dentures that no longer fit well
  • Problems or pain with swallowing
  • A lump in your neck
  • Ear pain
  • Trouble moving your mouth or jaw
  • Swelling of the jaw
  • A sore throat or feeling that something is caught in the throat

If you have any of these symptoms for more than two weeks, see your health care provider or dentist. Oral cancer can spread quickly, so it's important to find it early.

To find out if you have oral cancer, your provider may use:

  • A physical exam of the lips and mouth.
  • An endoscopy.
  • A biopsy or other procedure to collect cells from the lip or oral cavity. The cells are viewed under a microscope to find out if they are abnormal.
  • Imaging tests.

The treatments for oral cancer include surgery, radiation therapy, or both. After surgery, some people also need chemotherapy to kill any cancer cells that are left.

There are steps you can take to help prevent oral cancer:

  • Not smoking
  • Limiting alcohol use or not drinking at all
  • Getting regular dental exams

It sits within Cancers and Mouth and Teeth.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Cancer Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Oral Cancer

4,485 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Prevention and Risk Factors

Living With

Related Issues

Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Mouth Neoplasms. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Oral Cancer, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.