April is Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Month. According to the National Cancer Institute, head and neck cancers account for nearly 4% of all cancers in the United States. William Spanos, MD, head and neck surgeon, explains more about this group of cancers and risk factors you need to know.
How common are head and neck cancers?
Nationally, in the U.S., it’s about the sixth most common cancer that people experience, but it’s separated into many subtypes of cancers, so each one of those is more a rare disease, with the exception of some of the more common ones like throat cancer.
What regions of the head and neck can be affected?
Pretty much anywhere in the head and neck area. When we talk about head and neck cancer, it’s important that this excludes eyes, brain and thyroid, but all the other locations in your mouth, into your sinuses, back of your throat. These are areas that are very difficult for people to see themselves except for the mouth, and sometimes difficult to detect.
Are there any symptoms people can be aware of?
As a general rule we just say don’t ignore anything new. So if you have a sore throat and it’s lasting more than two weeks, if you found a new lump in your neck, if you’re having sinus pressure and pain and it’s not going away, those are all things we would not ignore, especially if you’re an adult over 21 years old. As you get older the rates of cancer go up so don’t ignore those symptoms.
What are treatment options?
Typically if we can remove them surgically without causing much damage or dysfunction to the patient, that is ideal, however, many people show up with cancers that are more advanced and those need to be treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, or sometimes just radiation alone.
