DOI: 10.36347/sjmcr.2015.v03i06.008

Pages: 475-478

The objective of this work is to report a case of a female patient with advanced oral epidermoid carcinoma. An 89-year-old female patient resident of the municipality of Araruna, Brazil, who had been a smoker since the age of five years, was sent to the diagnostic team at the State University of Paraíba, Campus VIII. The clinical exam revealed a large ulcerous, crusted tumor on the entire upper lip and ulcerous, erythematous, leukoplakic lesions in the orophranyx. The diagnosis was well-differentiated epidermoid carcinoma T4N0M0. The patient was sent for cancer treatment, which involved excision of the labial tumor and radiotherapy for the intraoral lesions. However, the patient refused to undergo radiotherapy. After nine months, the tumor had metastasized to the submandibular lymph node. The patient’s continued refusal to undergo treatment resulted in the growth of the tumor, ulceration of the submental lymph node and death 14 months after the initial diagnosis. Adherence to treatment is an important factor to the prognosis of cancer. Non-compliance on the part of the patient reported herein had a negative effect on her survival.