After the news that Hollywood legend Val Kilmer has died, one man has opened up about his battle with a similar diagnosis of throat cancer – and brushed it off as a sinus issue
As the sad news of Hollywood icon Val Kilmer’s death leaves fans devastated, a man has shared his throat cancer battle similar to the actor’s. The former Top Gun star died aged 65 in Los Angeles, California, with his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, revealing her legendary dad had died following a bout of pneumonia.
She confirmed to the NY Times that he had recovered from a throat cancer diagnosis in 2014, but a year later, he had to be rushed to UCLA Medical Center in 2015 to treat severe bleeding in his throat. The tumour was the result of oral cancer.
Mark Teague was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue base, a type of throat cancer in 2019, but only had one small symptom that he’d brushed off as a sinus issue – something he’s always struggled with.
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“The only throat cancer symptom I had was a little lump under the left side of my jaw. I’d been aware of it for a while, but since I’d had sinus problems all my life, I didn’t think anything of it. I just assumed it was another swollen lymph node,” the high school football coach told MD Anderson.
Mark, from Louisana, continued: “After about a year, I finally went to an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist to have it looked at. He kind of blew it off, so I let it go for a few more weeks. Then I started noticing it appeared to be bigger in the mornings and smaller as the day progressed. That shrinkage seemed kind of weird to me, so I went to see my general practitioner about it. She agreed and sent me to a different ENT.”
But the new ENT had sent him for a CT scan and knew almost immediately what it was. He specialised in throat cancer and had seen it before. “He told me flat out that it was probably throat cancer, but ordered a biopsy to confirm it.” Mark then called MD Anderson, a specialist Cancer Treatment centre in Houston, Texas.
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“At MD Anderson, I met first with head and neck surgeon Dr. Neil Gross. He ordered new scans and tests to confirm my diagnosis.” But after reviewing the scans, the specialist thought surgery would be an “overtreatment” for Mark and referred him to a head and neck medical oncologist
“Together, they determined that my best option was chemotherapy and radiation. I probably wouldn’t need surgery at all,” which Mark said sounded like the best option and he began his chemotherapy in October the same year. “I had my last dose of chemotherapy in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. A few days later, I started radiation therapy. I had 33 rounds of that, once a day, Monday through Friday. I rang the bell to mark my last radiation treatment on Feb. 13, 2020.”
He said the most surprising thing about his cancer was that it was most likely from the human papillomavirus (HPV). “I’d always associated throat cancer with heavy smoking. But I’ve never smoked.
“My doctors tried to confirm that the tumour was caused by HPV through testing, but the tissue sample from the biopsy was too small to obtain conclusive results. Still, my cancer resembled HPV-related disease in every way, so my doctors treated it as if it was.” The tumour “responded well” to the chemotherapy, so it was concluded it was caused by HPV.
Now Mark is urging his two sons to get the HPV vaccine, as he believes if it was around when he was a child when he contracted the virus and belives the jab would have prevented him from getting cancer.