Unusual Presentation of Squamous Cell Carcinoma in a Young Male: Clinicopathological Insights and Considerations

Cancer of the oral cavity is the most common cancer in males in India, and lip cancer comprises approximately 25% of all oral cancers. Squamous cell carcinoma of lip usually occurs in middle-aged male with history of tobacco use or smoking. Its occurrence in a young, non-smoker male with no associated known predisposing risk factors for carcinoma is very rare. We present a case of a 21-year-old male student who presented with a painless, gradually increasing, occasionally bleeding, nodulo-ulcerated lower lip lesion. The lesion was removed 3 months back with a carbon dioxide laser, and this was a recurrent lesion. We did lesion biopsy which confirmed squamous cell carcinoma. The patient started treatment at the T2N0M0 stage. Patient has responded well to the radiotherapy treatment. Our case had no known predisposing risk factors for carcinoma. For etiopathogenesis in this case, role of prior lesion removal with carbon dioxide laser is debatable. As laser treatment does not spare tissue for histopathology, so confirmatory diagnosis prior to laser removal remains unknown. Treating clinicians should always send a tissue biopsy for histopathology for definitive diagnosis and choose such a treatment modality where the tissue for histopathological diagnosis is preserved irrespective of clinical diagnosis. Future studies to find out exact etiopathogenesis in such cases need to be accelerated.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13193-024-01931-z.