Laryngeal giant cell tumour presenting as a tongue base lesion causing severe dysphagia

The human tongue is a fascinating and complex organ, responsible for various essential functions such as swallowing, speech, and taste. It is also subject to various conditions and diseases. In this article, we delve into the anatomy of the tongue, its roles, and some common conditions that can affect it.
Anatomical Position in the Oral Cavity
The tongue is located within the oral cavity, also known as the mouth. It is attached to the floor of the mouth by a fold of mucous membrane called the...

The tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon is a cognitive experience characterized by a temporary inability to retrieve specific information from memory despite having a strong feeling of knowing the information. Although individuals cannot access the target word or detail, they frequently recall related elements, such as its initial letter, syllable count, or context. This partial retrieval often causes frustration, as one might recognize a familiar face or know that a name starts with a specific...

The surface of the tongue is covered with various small bumps called papillae, which either distribute what has been ingested (filiform papillae) or contain the sensory taste (or gustatory) receptor cells (fungiform, circumvallate, and foliate papillae). Embedded within each taste-related papilla are the taste buds—clusters of 30 to 100 gustatory receptor cells.

Early diagnosis and treatment can often cure cancer. However, even with treatment, residual cells called cancer stem cells (CSC) might remain, often causing tumor recurrence. These cancer stem cells possess the potential for self-renewal and multi-lineage differentiation and are often responsible for the therapeutic resistance displayed in most cancers.
Cancer stem cells are thought to originate from tissue-specific normal stem cells or progenitor cells. The normal stem cells usually reside in...

One of the common DNA damages is the chemical alteration of single bases by alkylation, oxidation, or deamination. The altered bases cause mispairing and strand breakage during replication. This type of damage causes minimal change to the DNA double helix structure and can be repaired by the base excision repair (BER) pathways. BER corrects damaged DNA sequences by removing the damaged base and restoring the original base sequence using the complementary strand as a template.
The first step of...