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Below, week by week, is what OnCo's record of Lip cancer says about the first two months: the order is typical, the timing is yours to ask about. Cancer of the lip is really a skin cancer of the sun-exposed lower lip, usually found early because it can be seen. A small operation or radiotherapy cures most people, and reconstruction keeps the mouth working. Sections appear only where the record has something to say. Orientation, not medical advice.
Staging tests establish exactly what and where the cancer is. Everything else follows from the answers.
Ask which of these were tested and what the results were; see the report reader for what each value means.
These specialties appear in the standard of care for this cancer. In most centres they meet weekly as a tumour board to agree each plan; you can ask when yours was discussed and what was decided.
A second opinion from a centre that treats many similar cases is normal, not rude; the standard of care tells you what to compare it against.
Each row is a setting from the standard of care, in the order it usually arises. Not all will apply to you; your stage and biomarkers decide which do. The guideline grade, where recorded, says how strong the evidence is.
Sun protection of the lips, smoking cessation, and treatment of actinic cheilitis.
Wedge or V excision with local flap reconstruction, or radiotherapy (external beam or brachytherapy) for commissure tumours or unfit patients.
Cemiplimab as for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, or pembrolizumab-based treatment as for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Resection with flap reconstruction, sentinel node biopsy or neck dissection, and postoperative radiotherapy; cisplatin for extranodal extension or positive margins.
Generated from this cancer's standard of care, biomarkers and open problems. Take the group that matches where you are. To tick, add your own and print, open the one-page appointment sheet.
Much of what helps in the first weeks is free if you know to ask: testing, helplines, rides and lodging, second opinions, trial travel.
Every term links to the glossary.