“Full House” star Dave Coulier appeared on NBC’s “Today” and revealed he has been diagnosed with tongue cancer, nearly seven months after beating Stage 3 non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. He assured fans his prognosis is far better than his last bout with cancer and has “a 90% curability rate.” Coulier is set to undergo 35 rounds of radiation and will be done with the treatment on Dec. 31.
“Totally unrelated to the previous cancer that I had,” Coulier said. “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. 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.’”
“Prognosis is very good for P16 squamous carcinoma,” Coulier added. “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. So I hope you’re getting your check-ups. I hope you get your colonoscopies and breast exams and prostate exams, they will save your life.”
Per the American Cancer Society. P16 is a protein that’s a marker for human papillomavirus (HPV). Coulier’s doctors told him his tongue cancer “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 announced in November 2024 that he had been diagnosed with Stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer. He quickly began chemotherapy after discovering the cancer was Stage 3.
“You hear chemo, and it scares the daylights out of you,” the actor said at the time. “The first round was pretty intense because you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know how you’re going to feel. Is this going to hit me immediately? Is it going to be devastating? Am I going to walk out of here?”
Coulier then announced in March 2025 that he was cancer free. He spoke to Parade magazine about his cancer battle, explaining he finished grueling rounds of chemotherapy in February.
“The symptoms were getting worse and worse with each treatment,” he explained. “So neuropathy, which I hadn’t experienced before, started to increase. Nausea started to increase. Dizziness started to increase. They call it chemo brain, where you’re a bit foggy — that started to increase. My days of being able to get up and walk around and be active started to decrease.”
Coulier’s wife, Melissa, told the magazine the couple started to have “what if” conversations amid his struggles with treatment, explaining: “After [the fifth round of] chemo, he was like, ‘I don’t know if I could do this again.’ He was like, ‘I’m prepared either way. If I die, I die. And if I can stay here, great. I want to.’ Those conversations were obviously so tough.”
For his current tongue cancer diagnosis, Coulier told “Today” viewers that “the doctor said the prognosis is good, but we’re going to start radiation immediately… It’s a whole different animal than chemo. It doesn’t feel as aggressive, but there are still side effects.”