The Full House alum shared that he was diagnosed with P16-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in October, seven months after he confirmed he was cancer-free following his battle with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
Dave Coulier has revealed he’s battling cancer for a second cancer.
While appearing on Today, the Full House alum shared that he’s been diagnosed with tongue cancer, eight months after he confirmed he was cancer-free following a battle with stage 3 non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
Coulier, who also spoke to Today.com in an interview, told the outlet that he was diagnosed with P16-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, a type of tongue cancer, in October.
The 66-year-old actor said the tongue cancer is “totally unrelated” to his 2024 non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis.
“So in October of this year, I went in for a PET scan, just a routine check-up, and something flared on the PET scan,” he recalled on Today on Tuesday. “It turned out that I have P16 squamous carcinoma at the base of my tongue. So I said to the doctors, I said, ‘Well, did this happen because of the lymphoma?’ And they said, ‘Totally unrelated.'”
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
“So they said, ‘Well, now you’re gonna have to go through radiation,’ so I’m currently going through 35 radiation treatments. I’ll be done though, [on] December 31st,” Coulier added.
When asked about the prognosis for his cancer, Coulier said, “Prognosis is very good for P16 squamous carcinoma. So it has a 90+ curability rate.”
“But the thing that has really saved my life, Craig, is that early detection saved my life, not just the first time but the second time as well,” he told Today’s Craig Melvin. “So I hope you’re getting your check-ups. I hope your colonoscopies and breast exams, and prostate exams. They will save your life.”
This comes a little over a year after Coulier revealed his stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis, announcing the news in an interview with People at the time.
Coulier recalled that he learned about his diagnosis when an upper respiratory infection resulted in swelling in his lymph nodes. Coulier said the swelling became more severe, sharing that one area grew to the size of a golf ball. After he subsequently underwent PET and CT scans and a biopsy, he was told it was cancer.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
After undergoing treatment, he confirmed in March that he was cancer-free.
“It was a really tough year, chemotherapy was grueling,” Coulier recalled to Today.com in the new interview. As he previously mentioned, during a routine PET scan, doctors noticed something on his tongue, and subsequently performed a biopsy.
“It was very painful. It’s like if you bit your tongue, but the pain just lasted every single day,” he said, adding that while the first biopsy didn’t show signs of cancer, the follow-up PET scan revealed a growth on his tongue.
After more testing, he underwent another biopsy, which revealed cancer cells, and Coulier was diagnosed with early stage, P16-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, per Today.com.
“They said it’s totally unrelated to my non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is a new cancer. … I said, ‘Are you kidding me?'” he said to the outlet.
Waiting for your permission to load the Instagram Media.
According to the American Cancer Society, “early-stage oropharyngeal cancers (back of the tongue, soft palate, and tonsils) typically include most stage I and II (p16/HPV-positive and p16/HPV-negative) cancers.” P16-positive cancer is most often a result of a HPV — human papillomavirus — infection.
“They said it could stem from having an HPV virus up to 30 years ago. A lot of people carry the HPV virus, but they said mine activated and turned into a carcinoma,” Coulier told Today.com.
As he shared in his on-air interview, his condition is treatable, and he’s undergoing radiation. However, Coulier admitted that receiving two cancer diagnoses within a year has been difficult.
“It’s emotional. It’s psychologically draining. It’s also a big drain to my wife, Melissa, which is the biggest drain on me, seeing how this affects her,” he said, but added that he’s “cautiously optimistic.”
“I’m going to get on the other side of this,” Coulier declared.
