Prosthetic Challenges in Rehabilitation of Oral Cancer Survivors Having Incompetent Lips` Function Following Tumor Resection and/or Reconstruction Surgeries

Malignant or benign lesions resections, not infrequently carry morbid consequences such as altered facial appearance, lower jaw deviation, altered speech eloquence, difficulties in chewing and swallowing. Conjugated radiation therapy, in case of malignanacy, amplifies these morbidities even more.

One other major functionally debilitating aftermath for these patients is their lips incompetence which disenables food consumption without having it slip out at one lip corner or both or hinders water/liquid drinking without dropping out and wetting or staining their clothes, thus displaying their vulnerability.

Lips are a gate for food and beverages along their task in speech production. Improper function of this gate impairs social and personal activities which are important for physical and social recovery of these patients and has an enormous impact on self-esteem as well.

Prosthetic reconstructions aiming at restoring lost oral tissues and function, especially involving anterior parts of both jaws and soft tissues, are very much involved in restoring lip support or compensating for their incompetence.

Vertical dimension issues and maxillo-mandibular position in oral reconstruction of these patients should also consider their lips` function in order to provide proper rehabilitation.

Our objective is to spotlight this overlooked issue by showing several clinical cases of oral tumor surgery population in our clinic.

We will show how surgical procedures may end up with serious functional lip impairment and demonstrate our efforts to provide solutions to overcome these limitations and enable reasonable function.