Leukoplakia is a condition that creates white patches on your tongue, gums or the inside of your cheeks. The patches don’t hurt but they don’t go away. Leukoplakia may look harmless, but the condition may become mouth cancer.
Mouth cancers usually form on the tongue, in the lining of the mouth, on the lips or on the gums. The salivary glands, tonsils or pharynx can also get affected. Caught early, there is a good chance of cure. 80% of patients will live for five years or more after early diagnosis and treatment. However, if mouth cancer is not caught early there is just a 20% chance of surviving this long as the cancer spreads quickly, either directly to the jaw bone, throat and skull or indirectly via the lymphatic system.
Surgery in the head and neck can result in loss of form and function. One of Axel’s main expertise is to restore patients functionality and appearance after a cancer removal operation. He is able to perform this using microsurgery techniques in order to utilise tissues from the same patient to reconstruct defects caused by previous surgery. This is usually done at the same time of the cancer removal operation, but it can also be done after (secondary reconstruction). His success rate with these procedure is 97.6%, and he has a very extensive repertoire of reconstructive techniques, each one with its pros and cons and suitable for different types of situation.
- Radial forearm free flap
- Lateral Arm free flap
- Temporal Artery Posterior Auricular Skin (TAPAS) free flap
- Superficial Circumflax Iliac Artery (Groin) free flap
- Anterolateral thigh (ALT) free flap
- Latissimus dorsi free flap
- Scapular tip free flap
- Fibula free flap
Sentinel Node Biopsy (SNB) is a minimally invasive technique that can trace the movement of cancer cells from the mouth into nodes of the neck. It is the most accurate way to identify early metastasis.