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 Tongue Disorders
Your tongue helps you taste, swallow, and chew. You also use it to speak. Your tongue is made up of many muscles. The upper surface contains your taste buds.
Problems with the tongue include:
- Pain
- Swelling
- Changes in color or texture
- Abnormal movement or difficulty moving the tongue
- Taste problems
These problems can have many different causes. Treatment depends on the underlying problem.
It sits within Mouth and Teeth.
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 Tongue Disorders
402 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
- Tongue Muscular Assessment in Children With Sleep Disordered BreathingHospices Civils de Lyon
- Modified Coronally Advanced Tunnel for Mandibular Lingual Root CoverageUniversity of Pittsburgh
- Chemotherapy With or Without Bevacizumab in Treating Patients With Recurrent or Metastatic Head and Neck Squamous Cell CarcinomaNational Cancer Institute (NCI)
- A Proof-of-Concept Study to Evaluate Topical-Lingual Semaglutide in Adults With ObesityGila Therapeutics, Inc.
- Effectivity of P1821, a Novel Tongue Strengthening and Endurance Enhancing Speech Flow ExerciseDream Video LLC
- Window Trial of Fluorescently Labeled Panitumumab (Panitumumab-IRDye800) in Head and Neck CancerVanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Research already completed
- Interventions for Patients With Alzheimer's Disease and DysphagiaUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison
- Lyme Borreliosis and Early Cutaneous DiagnosticUniversity Hospital, Strasbourg, France
- Establishment of Tongue Image Database and Machine Learning Model for Malignant Tumors DiagnosisZhejiang Cancer Hospital
- Sub-Lingual Dexmedetomidine in Agitation Associated With DementiaBioXcel Therapeutics Inc
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.
Start Here
- Lip and Tongue DisordersMerck & Co., Inc.
Clinical Trials
- ClinicalTrials.gov: GlossitisNational Institutes of Health
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Glossitis, Benign MigratoryNational Institutes of Health
- ClinicalTrials.gov: Tongue DiseasesNational Institutes of Health
Medical subject headings
Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Tongue Diseases. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.
This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Tongue Disorders, 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.