ABSTRACT
The standard of care for most lip and oral cavity cancers still remains as primarily surgery. Any surgically resectable tumour of the lip or oral cavity is an indication for a wide-local resection. The need for a tracheostomy is dependent on the size and location of the cancer and the planned method of reconstruction. The need for a tracheostomy is dependent on the size and location of the cancer and the planned method of reconstruction. The major guiding principle of surgery is excision of the entire cancer with negative margins. Negative margins are usually regarded as 5 mm or more histologically normal tissue around the squamous cell carcinoma. Actinic damage may affect the entire lip. For those patients with actinic keratosis or multifocal dysplasia and superficially invasive carcinoma vermilionectomy is warranted. Some surgeons perform a pan-endoscopy in patients who are smokers and drinkers prior to commencement of the ablation of the tumour.
