‘Top Chef’ alum Shirley Chung was diagnosed with tongue cancer — and ‘a series of dental issues’ were her first clue something was wrong
Chef Shirley Chung, a two-time finalist on the cooking show Top Chef, has been diagnosed with tongue cancer and is undergoing intensive treatment for the disease. The chef and owner of Ms Chi Cafe, who placed third on Top Chef: New Orleans and was runner-up three years later on Top Chef: Charleston, shared the news on Instagram over the weekend alongside a series of photos and videos that show her shaving her head with the help of loved ones.
Chung revealed in the caption of the post that her tumor is shrinking with the help of chemotherapy sessions, but noted that she has “many more to go.” She shared in a separate Instagram post that she would be pausing the operation of her restaurant so that she could focus on her treatment and recovery.
Tongue cancer isn’t a common disease. Here’s what to know about it — and what Chung has shared about her condition.
What has Shirley Chung said about her tongue cancer?
Chung wrote in an Instagram post that she had a series of dental issues that started last December. “I bit my tongue severely; I fractured my tooth and had to extract it and get an implant. … We thought it was because I am a heavy teeth grinder,” she wrote. Chung said that she was “too busy” to see an ear, nose and throat specialist, but her symptoms continued to get worse.
“The end of May, ulcers erupted in my mouth and my oral surgeon discovered a hidden tumor under my tongue,” she wrote. “A few days later, I was diagnosed [with] stage 4 tongue cancer, as cancer cells also spread into my lymph nodes.”
Chung said she was “very calm” when she was given the news. “As a chef, I’ve always [thrived] under pressure,” she said. “I was extremely focused on getting all the tests and scans as fast as possible, so I can start on the treatment plans.”
But Chung said she “broke down crying” after her doctor at Cedars Sinai called her in early June to discuss treatment plans. “All I heard was ‘option 1, surgery [which meant] 100% removal of your tongue,’” she said. Her husband, Jimmy Lee, asked doctors if there was an option that would let Chung keep her tongue.
Chung said she was told about a “unicorn case” at the University of Chicago where a patient — and fellow chef — was cured of tongue cancer after receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments. “Higher survival rate or keep my tongue? I chose to keep my tongue,” she said. “I am a fighter, I am a chef, I can be that unicorn too.”
Chung said she just finished six weeks of chemotherapy, with more treatments to come. “Going to the hospital four times a week for injections, it’s like a full-time job,” she wrote. “My tumor is shrinking, my speech is much better and I can eat most normal food now.”
Chung said she has a “tough, long road to recovery,” but added that “your love and support will carry me through. Cheer me on, Shirley Chung 2.0 will be reborn in 2025!”
What is tongue cancer?
There are two main types of tongue cancer. Oral tongue cancer is a cancer that happens in the front two-thirds of the tongue, while oropharyngeal tongue cancer forms at the base of the tongue in the back portion of the mouth and can extend into the throat, Dr. Deepa Danan, a head and neck surgeon at Moffitt Cancer Center, tells Yahoo Life.
Tongue cancer makes up about 1% of new cancer cases, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
“Over the past decade, there has been a slight annual increase in tongue cancer diagnoses in the country,” Dr. Neal Akhave, assistant professor of thoracic/head and neck medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, tells Yahoo Life. Tongue cancer is usually a type of squamous cell carcinoma, Akhave says. Tongue cancers that happen in the front two-thirds of the mouth are usually caused by tobacco or alcohol use, but “non-smokers and non-drinkers can also develop them,” Akhave says.
Oropharyngeal tongue cancer can also be linked to alcohol or tobacco use, but is most often linked to human papillomavirus (HPV), Akhave says.
What are the symptoms of tongue cancer?
Symptoms of tongue cancer can be confused with other things, making this difficult to diagnose at first, Dr. Amit Kochhar, a head and neck surgeon and director of the Facial Nerve Disorders Program at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. “It’s usually caught by a dentist,” he says.
These are some of the main symptoms someone with tongue cancer might experience, according to Moffitt Cancer Center:
Red or white patches on your tongue
Sores, lumps or mouth ulcers that don’t heal
A painful, swollen or bleeding tongue that doesn’t get better
A sore throat when swallowing
Difficulty moving your tongue or jaw
A feeling that something is stuck in your throat
Persistent hoarseness
Ear pain
“Patients will usually go to the dentist’s office for a routine cleaning and it will be detected,” Kochhar says. “The classic case is telling the dentist, ‘I bit my tongue and it’s not healing.’” From there, most dentists will refer a patient to an ear, nose and throat doctor or oral surgeon for an evaluation.
“We’ll usually do a biopsy and then we’ll know if it’s cancer or something else,” Kochhar says.
What is the prognosis with tongue cancer?
It depends. “The standard of care for oral tongue cancer is generally surgery, potentially followed by radiation and chemotherapy,” Danan says.
But the stage the cancer is in matters. “Most tongue cancer is caught early, before it has spread below the collarbones,” Akhave says. “However, many people do present with cancer that involves lymph nodes in the neck.”
If someone has tongue cancer that’s caught early, doctors may recommend cutting out the tumor, along with a margin of tissue around it. “Oftentimes, you then let it heal on its own,” Kochhar says. Some patients may need to have a larger portion of the tongue removed, and then will have reconstructive surgery afterward to rebuild the tongue.
Kochhar says it’s “exceptionally rare” to remove the whole tongue, but it may be recommended in cases with large or aggressive tumors.
But Kochhar points out that the tongue is an important organ for speech, swallowing and taste, making this a difficult cancer treatment to recover from. “It can have a big impact on communication, although patients will typically do very well with speech therapy,” he says. Those who need to have the entire tongue removed can have issues communicating and may need to be dependent on a feeding tube due to problems swallowing, Kochhar says. “Obviously the quality of life would be reduced,” he says.
Chung isn’t the only high-profile chef to be confronted with the potential loss of the tongue due to cancer. In 2007, Grant Achatz, an award-winning chef who most recently appeared as himself in the Season 3 finale of The Bear, underwent radiation and chemotherapy to avoid substantial surgery on his tongue after being diagnosed with stage IV squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. Though his treatment did temporarily cause him to lose his sense of taste — an experience he documented in his memoir, Life, On the Line — he is now in full remission.
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