How We Treat Head and Neck Cancer

Although some head and neck cancers are located in places that are difficult to operate on, surgery is still the most common treatment. The goal of surgery is to take out the cancer as well as a slight edge of healthy tissue around the tumor. In some cases, all or part of the tongue, throat, vocal box, wind pipe or jaw bone may need to be removed. Surgery may also be used to take out lymph nodes in the neck that haven’t gotten better with other treatments.

Further surgery may be done for purposes of reconstruction or to compensate for functional loss due to cancer. For example, if you cannot swallow because of a tumor, surgery may be done to put in a feeding tube.

Learn more about overall cancer surgery.

Radiation therapy uses high-energy X-rays to kill or shrink cancer cells. Your doctor may use internal or external radiation, or both, to treat your cancer. This treatment can be used to shrink a tumor before surgery, kill cancer cells that remain in the area after surgery, target tumors that can’t be removed with surgery, or treat cancer if you cannot have surgery.

Radiation to the head and neck area can cause problems with tissue healing after dental work. For this reason, your doctor may suggest you have a full dental exam before starting radiation. If you have dental problems, the doctor will want you to have an exam as soon as possible before radiation starts. Because dental problems can get worse with radiation, it may be necessary to have some or all of your teeth removed.

Chemotherapy uses powerful medicines, either given through a vein or taken as pills, to kill cancer cells all through the body. Chemo is given in rounds, followed by a break; treatment can last for months. Chemo may be used to shrink a tumor before surgery or to kill any cancer cells that remain after local treatments. It may also treat tumors that have grown in other places in the body. Cancers that have spread are usually treated with chemotherapy.

Immunotherapy is the use of medicines to help a person’s own immune system recognize and destroy invading cancer cells. These medicines can be in the form of pills or injections or given through an IV.

Targeted therapy drugs target the changes in cells that cause cancer cells to form. These drugs affect the cancer cells in your body and leave your normal cells alone. This treatment course sometimes works when standard chemotherapy drugs don’t, and they often have different (and less severe) side effects. Targeted therapy drugs come as pills that you take at home.

Your doctor may suggest using this therapy in combination with chemotherapy or radiation therapy. This is especially true if your cancer has stopped responding to radiation or chemotherapy care.