Some aspects of accessible cancers. Lip, tongue and mouth. Part Two.

This film (one of five) is aimed at general practitioners and other professional medical audiences. Its purpose is to encourage doctors to refer patients to a specialist as soon as possible. Each patient is interviewed regarding how the tumours originally presented themselves. Surprisingly, many of the patients have had their tumours for some time. The film features some patients with considerable facial and physical deformity. An elderly patient has an unpleasant cancerous ulcer. Size is an issue; small ones are invariably curable. Treatments in early cases are via a radium mould or a radium implant. An elderly male patient has a lip lesion diagnosed; a joint clinic is in progress and they admit the patient immediately in hospital. The Mould Room is seen in operation. Appliances are engineered for each patient to ensure that the treatment is accurately targeted. The dangerous nature of radium means that patients are in a ward of their own; they are seen at leisure. A man with a massive lip growth has an instatitial radium implant; the patient is seen at 8 weeks after treatment with the tumour regressing, then 12 weeks afterwards with, cosmetically, a good result. An elderly female patient has cancer of the tongue; needles are implanted with various coloured threads to indicate various dosages.The patient has the implants in place for a while; the patient eats soup. A patient had to have part of his tongue and mandible surgically removed; the classical spread of the disease is shown via a medical illustration. Cases of block dissection are followed up regularly. Mouth cancer can be trickier to treat; external radiation is recommended. The Mould Room technicians are seen in action; they create a matrix from a plaster model then a plastic mould. The patient ends up with an elaborate mask. As with the other types of cancer, early diagnosis is key.