Dental injuries include damage to the teeth, lips, gums and tongue. They can result from sport or road traffic accidents, as well as fights and falls. The most common injury is a broken or lost tooth.
Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a method of building up a detailed picture of your body and its organs. Unlike CT (computerised tomography) it does not use X-ray radiation but instead magnetic fields are used to build up the pictures.
A DCIA free flap is one way of filling a bony hole in either the upper or lower jaw. It is one of the common ways of replacing bone that has been removed for cancer treatment.
You have recently been diagnosed as suffering from oral cancer. As part of the preparation for deciding which treatment is best for you, your doctors will “stage” your cancer. This leaflet tells you what is involved in that staging process and why it is important for your care.
You have a lesion on the skin of your face that requires removal. It will already have been discussed with you that this is the best form of treatment rather than using creams, lotions or freezing the area. The removal involves a local anaesthetic, ie: you are going to be awake but the area will be numb so that you feel no pain.
A neck dissection is an operation to remove lymph nodes from the neck on one or both sides.
A fibular free flap is one way of filling a bony hole in either the upper or lower jaw. It is one of the common ways of replacing bone that has been removed for cancer treatment.
Your surgeon has decided that the best way to sort out the problems you are experiencing from your jaw joint is to perform “open” surgery. Open surgery involves exposing the jaw joint fully by making a cut in front of the ear rather than using keyhole techniques.
Your cheekbone has been broken. The cheekbone forms part of the eye socket, both protecting the eyeball and supporting it from below. It is also linked to the side of the nose and the upper jaw. The number of fractures, where they have occurred and whether they need treatment to help them heal has already been established by the doctor who examined you. The treatment that is about to take place involves a general anaesthetic, ie: you are going to be put to sleep completely.
A biopsy is a procedure where a small piece of tissue is removed from an area so that it can be looked at closely under a microscope. The biopsy may aim to remove an area completely (an excision biopsy). This is usually only appropriate for small lumps or swellings. Occasionally only a small piece of an abnormal area is removed to confirm a diagnosis (an incisional biopsy).