Full House star Dave Coulier revealed he’s been diagnosed with tongue cancer, less than a year after treatment was successful against his non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Coulier, 66, shared his health update during an interview on Dec. 2 on Today, calling the news a “shock to the system.”
“To go through chemotherapy and feel that relief of, ‘Whoa, it’s gone.’ And then to get a test that says, ‘Well, now you’ve got another kind of cancer.’ … it is a shock to the system,” he said, before explaining that he was diagnosed with HPV-related oropharyngeal tongue cancer in October.
Coulier had shared that he was cancer-free following his battle with Stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, just six months before he received the new diagnosis.
He noted that he had not exhibited any symptoms or signs before the discovery during a follow-up scan.
“A couple of months ago, I had a PET scan, and something flared on the scan,” Coulier recalled. “The doctor said, ‘We don’t know what it is, but there’s something at the base of your tongue.’”
He said that his doctor had 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.
Coulier shared that the initial biopsy didn’t show any signs of cancer.
“We thought, ‘This is great. We’re still not sure what it is, but there aren’t any cancer cells,’” he explained.
At his next scheduled PET scan in October, Coulier said that his doctors noticed the growth on his tongue had flared again and grown in size.
He said that he went to an ear, nose and throat oncologist for more testing. After a CT scan and an MRI, doctors performed another biopsy to remove a larger piece of his tongue.
Once the biopsy results came back positive for cancerous cells, Coulier was diagnosed with early-stage P16 carcinoma, or oropharyngeal tongue cancer, which starts in a part of the throat known as the oropharynx.
A cancerous tumour is a group of cancer cells that can grow into and destroy nearby tissue, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. It can also spread to other parts of the body.
P16 is a protein that’s a marker for HPV, or human papillomavirus. A P16-positve cancer is caused by infection with HPV-16, a type of high-risk HPV, according to the American Cancer Society.
“They said it’s totally unrelated to my non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is a new cancer. … I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Coulier recalled.
The actor said that doctors told him it could “stem from having an HPV virus up to 30 years ago.”
Get daily National news
Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
“A lot of people carry the HPV virus, but they said mine activated and turned into a carcinoma,” he added.
“We found it early enough where it’s very treatable. … It’s got a 90 per cent curability rate,” Coulier said. “The doctor said the prognosis is good, but we’re going to start radiation immediately.”
Coulier said he is currently undergoing radiation therapy, with 35 treatments in total, Monday through Friday, which will continue through the end of the year.
“It’s a whole different animal than chemo. It doesn’t feel as aggressive, but there are still side effects,” he said, adding that the side effects include nausea, “radiation brain” and pain on the left side of his face and tongue, where tissue was removed for the biopsy.
“My joke usually is … I’m doing really well for a guy with cancer.”
Coulier said that experiencing two different cancer diagnoses in one year has taken a toll.
“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.
Coulier said that his doctors expect the cancer to “be cured” after radiation. His last treatment is on Dec. 31.
“I get to start the new year saying, I finished radiation yesterday! It’s kind of serendipitous,” he added.
“The silver lining here is that I had cancer, which helped me detect my other cancer. It seems crazy to be making that statement, but it’s true,” Coulier said.
“Had I not gone in and listened to my doctors and made sure that I got that PET scan to follow up, we would have never found this carcinoma … and I could be in a world of hurt. This could have progressed immensely, and I would be in trouble.”
In April, Coulier revealed that he received two bits of life-changing news on the very same day: he had become a grandfather, and there was no evidence of disease in his body.
Coulier shared the timing of the two important moments on April 18 on How Rude, Tanneritos!, the podcast hosted by his former Full House co-stars Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber.
“I got the good news the day the baby was born. So I heard the news and I was so excited, and then Luc (Coulier’s son) called us and he said, ‘Hey, the baby just was born.’ And so, I mean, it was an amazing day,” Coulier shared.
“It was really amazing, you know? So we were like, ‘Oh, this is just too much!’”
In March, Coulier opened up about the toughest parts of his cancer treatment after receiving a diagnosis late last year.
He learned that he had Stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma — a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic and immune systems — in November 2024, revealing that he first noticed symptoms in October after contracting a respiratory infection that caused swelling in his lymph nodes around his groin and armpits.
“It swelled up immediately,” Coulier told Today in November. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m either really sick, or my body’s really reacting to something.’”
Subsequent scans, along with a biopsy, led to a diagnosis. Within three days, Coulier was in treatment.
He provided an update near the end of last year, telling Today that in the five weeks following his diagnosis, he had undergone three surgeries, begun chemo and lost some of his hair.
Coulier fell ill again after completing a sixth and final round of chemotherapy in late February, telling Parade magazine that in the depths of treatment, it’s hard not to contemplate death.
“I started to get pretty sick,” he told the publication, “I didn’t know that I had caught a virus. I was in bed for about 10 days just trying to figure out, ‘Do I have a cold? Am I just feeling the ramifications of this cumulative effect of the chemo? What is going on?’”
Coulier also mentioned his friend and Full House co-star John Stamos, who faced backlash in November for a photo he shared with Coulier sporting a bald cap in a gesture of solidarity.
“I think people misunderstood my personal relationship with my buddy John Stamos,” Coulier said.
“He knows what makes me laugh, and when he walked out like that, I fell on the floor laughing. It wasn’t us making fun of others so much as it was: Let’s laugh our way through this because this is a tough journey,” he explained, adding that Stamos calls him almost daily to check in.
— With files from Global News’ Rachel Goodman
