Michael Douglas never had throat cancer , as he told the press in 2010 . The actor now says he had tongue cancer . Douglas said he hid the diagnosis at the urging of his doctor to protect his career . `` The surgeon said , 'Let 's just say it 's throat cancer , ' `` Douglas told fellow actor Samuel L. Jackson for a segment that ran on British television as a part of Male Cancer Awareness Week . Douglas says that the doctor told him if they had to do surgery for tongue cancer , `` it 's not going to be pretty . You could lose part of your tongue and jaw . '' When Douglas first talked about his cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2010 , he was on a worldwide publicity tour for the movie `` Wall Street : Money Never Sleeps . '' Douglas and Jackson joked that could have been the end of his acting career . Douglas said if he had surgery he could see the director saying , `` What 's your good side ? I 've got no side over here . '' The lesson from Michael Douglas . `` There really is no such thing as throat cancer per se , '' explained Brian Hill , an oral cancer survivor and the founder of the Oral Cancer Foundation . Douglas has taped a public service announcement to raise awareness about oral cancer for Hill 's foundation . `` Throat '' cancer and tongue cancer are both colloquial terms that fall under the oral cancer umbrella . Throat cancer usually refers to cancerous tumors that develop in your pharynx , voice box or tonsils . Tongue cancer refers to cancerous cells that develop on your tongue . `` The treatment up until just recently can be very brutal , '' Hill said of tongue cancer . `` Your career as a leading man could be over . If you have signed a contract to promote a movie , you would have a strong motivation not to say ... 'Maybe in six months I wo n't have a tongue or lower jaw . ' `` Douglas apparently did not need the potentially disfiguring surgery . He told Jackson he was instead treated with an aggressive form of radiation and chemotherapy . The treatment , he said , lasted five months . Yes , oral sex can lead to cancer . In June , Douglas kicked off an animated conversation about the cause of oral cancer when he told The Guardian that he got throat cancer after engaging in oral sex . Oral sex can expose individuals to the human papilloma virus , which can cause cancer . Later , Douglas ' publicist told CNN that Douglas did not blame HPV solely for his cancer ; Douglas said he was also a smoker and a drinker . Smoking and drinking , particularly when combined , are considered the most significant contributing factors to oral cancer , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . So is Douglas ' gender . Men are twice as likely to develop oral cancer as women . Oral cancers account for 2 % to 4 % of all cancer diagnoses in the United States . An oral cancer diagnosis is particularly serious ; only half of the people diagnosed with oral cancer are still alive after five years , according to the CDC . In large part , that 's because of the late diagnoses of this disease . Most signs of this cancer are difficult to detect and are often painless . Douglas told Jackson that initially his doctors treated him with antibiotics . Douglas had been complaining of a soreness at the back of his teeth . Three months later when it still hurt , the doctor gave him another round of antibiotics . Nine months later , after talking to a friend who was a cancer survivor , he went to the oncology department where a doctor did an initial exam and then a biopsy . He was diagnosed with stage four oral cancer in 2010 . Michael Douglas has overcome throat cancer , he says . Douglas is not the first celebrity to misidentify the kind of cancer they have . Actress Valerie Harper , who first came to fame on the TV show `` Mary Tyler Moore , '' announced her cancer on the cover of People magazine in March . The story said she had little time left to live and was suffering from terminal brain cancer . It turns out the `` Dancing With the Stars '' celebrity actually had lung cancer that had spread to the lining of her brain . `` I see a lot of people with 'brain cancer ' who actually have ... lung cancer or breast cancer or some other cancer ( that spread ) to the brain , '' Dr. Otis Brawley , the American Cancer Society 's chief medical and science officer , told CNN . `` We treat cancer according to its origin . '' Harper 's kind of cancer , leptomeningeal carcinomatosis , can be slowed but the cells are adaptable and can develop a resistance to treatment . A complete remission is unlikely . Douglas , on the other hand , has had regular check-ups since the diagnosis . At his two-year mark , he told Jackson , his doctors said he was clear of the cancer . `` There is a 95 % chance it 's not coming back , '' he told Jackson .
Actor Michael Douglas says he hid his tongue cancer at his doctor 's urging . Score: 6 The CDC estimates only half of those diagnosed with oral cancer survive .