Dave Coulier is diagnosed with tongue cancer after beating lymphoma

Dave Coulier revealed that he is undergoing treatment for tongue cancer less than a year after beating non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Coulier, 66, shared his latest health update during an interview on Tuesday, December 2 on the Today show. “To go through chemotherapy and feel the relief of, ‘Whoa, it’s gone.’ And then get a test that says, ‘Now you have a different type of cancer.’ … it’s a shock to the system,” he said, explaining that he was diagnosed with HPV-related oropharyngeal tongue cancer in October.

The actor noted that he showed no symptoms or signs before a chance discovery during a follow-up scan confirmed his second cancer diagnosis.

“It was a very tough year, the chemotherapy was grueling,” Coulier said. “A few months ago I had a PET scan and something flashed on the scan. The doctor said, ‘We don’t know what it is, but there’s something at the base of your tongue.'”

After a biopsy, Coulier’s doctor confirmed the health problem.

“It was very painful. It’s like biting your tongue, but the pain lasted every day,” he explained. “They said it’s completely unrelated to my non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is a new form of cancer. … I said, ‘Are you kidding me?'”

Coulier initially announced in November 2024 that he had been diagnosed with stage III non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“I went from, I got a little cold to I have cancer, and it was pretty overwhelming,” he revealed to People at the time, calling the cancer “very aggressive” but noting that it had not spread to his bone marrow. “At that point my chances of recovery went from slightly low to [the] 90 percent reach. And so that was a great day.”

Coulier remembered how he told his first one Full house informed cast members of the news, saying, “I didn’t want them to hear it from anyone else, so I sent a text message. It was just this outpouring of, ‘I’ll be there. Just name the time, and I know you’re in good hands.’ [wife Melissa Bring]but what can we do?’ It’s really overwhelming how much love we have for each other. We’ve been there for each other for so many years, and it’s pretty remarkable.

Earlier this year, Coulier announced that he was officially cancer-free. He is now battling early-stage P16 carcinoma, also called oropharyngeal tongue cancer.

According to the American Cancer Society, P16 is a protein that is a marker for HPV or the human papillomavirus. A P16-positive cancer is caused by infection with HPV-16, a type of high-risk HPV. (The National Cancer Institute reported that HPV-16 is sexually transmitted, and long-term infection can cause changes in the cells that can become cancerous.)

“They said it could come from having an HPV virus up to 30 years ago. Many people carry the HPV virus, but they said mine was activated and turned into a carcinoma,” Coulier explained. “We caught it early enough and it’s very treatable. … It has a 90 percent cure rate.”

Coulier’s medical team assured him that “the prognosis is good,” adding, “But we are going to start radiation immediately.” He is currently undergoing radiation therapy, which amounts to a total of 35 treatments over five days a week until the end of the year.

“It’s a completely different animal than chemo. It doesn’t feel as aggressive, but there are still side effects,” he said of symptoms including nausea, “radiation to the brain” and pain on the left side of his face and tongue. “That is not yet 100 percent cured.”

He continued, “My joke is usually… I’m doing really well for a guy with cancer. I start the new year by saying, ‘I finished radiation yesterday!’ It’s a bit of a coincidence.”

While reflecting on the health issues, Coulier talked about how his mental health has been affected.

“It’s emotional. It’s psychologically draining. It’s also a big burden on my wife, Melissa, which is the biggest burden on me as this affects her,” he added. “[I remain] cautiously optimistic. I’m going to be on the other side of this. The silver lining here is that I had cancer, which allowed me to discover my other cancer. It seems crazy to make this statement, but it is true.”

He concluded, “If I hadn’t listened to my doctors and made sure I got that PET scan to follow up, we would never have found this carcinoma… and I would have been in a world of hurt. This could have gone way up, and I would have been in trouble.”