Diagnosis of Oral Cancer
Diagnosing oral cancer is a step-wise approach that often begins with a primary care doctor or dentist seeing an abnormality in your mouth or throat after performing a physical exam. In this case, or if you are experiencing one or more symptoms suspicious for oral cancer, your healthcare professional will refer you to someone who specializes in diseases of the mouth and throat, called an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor.

The ENT doctor will perform a thorough head and neck exam, looking for all abnormal areas and/or enlarged lymph nodes. In order to best perform this exam, the ENT may use an endoscope (a flexible tube with a camera and light at the end).

If suspicious areas are visualized during the exam, a tissue sample (called a biopsy) is removed. If cancer cells are found within the biopsy, the stage of the disease (how far cancer has spread) is then determined. Overall, staging is used to both determine proper treatment and help predict a person's prognosis or outlook.

Some of the tests involved in staging include:

HPV testing of the biopsy specimen
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Computed tomography (CT) scan of the neck and chest
Positron emission tomography (PET) scan
Dental X-rays
Barium swallow (gastrointestinal series of X-rays of the esophagus and stomach)