[The untold suffering. Psychosocial consequences of tongue tumor]

It is evident from literature that is no clear picture of the psychosocial factors that play a role in the way patients with tongue neoplasms cope with their defects and their treatment. The most significant component of the impact of postoperative disfigurement and dysfunction appears within a social context where the drastic alteration in anatomic contour interrupts the visual impression ordinarily provided by the face in social interation. Physological, psychological, and social adaptation to postsurgical defects can indeed be facilitated with proper intervention. The deepest and initial suffering is often silent and unarticulated. The tendency toward silence appeared to have been reinforced by emotionally traumatic expierences in early life. . In the existential dimension of suffering, one is searching for one's own of giving the suffering meaning and the fight for hope and life. The struggling act of suffering demads a compassonate other to confirm suffering.