What Are Common Head and Neck Cancer Symptoms and Treatment Side Effects?

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What Are Common Head and Neck Cancer Symptoms and Treatment Side Effects? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What symptoms and side effects can head and neck cancer patients experience? Expert Dr. Ari Rosenberg discusses common symptoms and treatment side effects and explains why it’s important to share your symptoms and side effects with your doctor.

Dr. Ari Rosenberg is a medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Rosenberg.

See More From The Pro-Active Head and Neck Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Transcript:

Katherine:

What about symptoms and side effects? What should people be worried about? 

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yeah. So, oftentimes when patients come to us with a new diagnosis of head and neck cancer, when looking back, they’ve had, sometimes, symptoms for a while, whether it’s a nagging ulcer on their tongue, or some difficulty with speech, or a new hoarseness, or a lump in the neck that turns out to be a cancerous lymph node.  

And so, even before we get into the diagnosis of head and neck cancer, I do think it’s important for people to know that, in particular, if some of these symptoms – particularly if they’re lasting for a while and not going away with more conservative measures like antibiotics – really need to be evaluated by an ENT and a doctor team to make the diagnosis of head and neck cancer, so it can be treated. 

The side effects of treatment very much depend on the treatment modality that’s used. So, for example, when chemotherapy and radiation, and chemoradiation is utilized, oftentimes, the treatment itself could be associated with a lot of side effects from treatment. Things like a sore throat, things like skin changes, things like fatigue, challenges with nutrition, and a plethora of other things that, depending on some of the specifics, can be associated. Which is one of the reasons why we’re trying to figure out if there are some patients that we can deintensify the radiation, or do more precise radiation, rather than standard, regular dose radiation for everyone. But that’s of course in the context of some of the clinical trials that are being evaluated for improving outcomes for head and neck cancer patients.  

Who Are the Members of a Head and Neck Cancer Care Team?

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Who Are the Members of a Head and Neck Cancer Care Team? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Head and neck cancer care may involve a whole team of healthcare providers, but who are they? Expert Dr. Ari Rosenberg discusses the various team members and their roles in patient care.

Dr. Ari Rosenberg is a medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Rosenberg.

See More From The Pro-Active Head and Neck Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Transcript:

Katherine:

There can be a number of people on a head and neck cancer patient’s care team. Would you give us an overview of who these team members might be, and what their roles are? 

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yeah, absolutely. And this is one thing, actually, that I enjoy about treating head and neck cancer which is that because of the complexity of the head and neck in general, cancers that arise really do require a multidisciplinary team to figure out what the best treatment approach is.  

And not only that, but most of the treatment plans that we incorporate for the treatment of head and neck cancer involve a very large and robust support team that provide different perspectives and help in optimizing outcomes for patients.

So, the three types of oncologists in our program, for example, all new patients that come in meet all three of these types of oncologists. So, one is an ENT, or a head and neck oncologist, or a head and neck surgeon, that’s one important member of the team. The second is a radiation oncologist. So, a radiation oncologist is the team member that uses radiation to treat head and neck cancer. And the third is someone like myself, a medical oncologist. We’re the ones that do the chemotherapy, or other types of systemic therapy, or other types of things like that.

And those are really the three tools, and the three oncologists that use those tools to figure out what the best treatment approach is. However, because many of the treatments that we give, whether it’s surgical treatment, or whether it’s some combination of chemotherapy and radiation, or of chemoradiation, there are many side effects of treatment. And as such, there are many other team members that are involved in supporting patients and optimizing outcomes through any of those treatment modalities.  

So, that oftentimes involves specialized nursing, speech and swallow doctors and pathologists, dentistry, and prosthodontics. Sometimes other types of surgeons are involved, like neurosurgeons, or skull-based surgeons, or nasopharynx surgeons as well.  

As well as nutrition and dietician, physical therapy, psychosocial supportive services. I’m probably missing many, but on and on, really are all involved in the care of patients during treatment. And not only that, but even in the non-patient facing side, there are other team members also that are very important that a patient may not meet, such as the pathologists that help us determine the subtype of the cancer, whether it’s HPV related or not. Sometimes some of the genomic makers and things like that that can be very important, or immune markers that are very important for treatment decisions.  

We have radiologists that have expertise in the head and neck space that help us determine exactly the extent of the disease and look at the imaging in a multidisciplinary fashion. Again, I probably missed some of the team members offhand, but yes, it’s definitely a team sport, which is really, really important. 

Head and Neck Cancer Staging | What Patients Need to Know

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Head and Neck Cancer Staging | What Patients Need to Know from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What do head and neck cancer patients need to know about staging? Expert Dr. Ari Rosenberg discusses the testing involved in determining head and neck cancer stages. 

Dr. Ari Rosenberg is a medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Rosenberg.

See More From The Pro-Active Head and Neck Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Transcript:

Katherine:

How is head and neck cancer staged? 

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yeah, so after the diagnosis of head and neck cancer, there’s generally a number of tests that are done to determine where it spreads to.  

Where it started, where it spreads to, to figure out what the best treatment approach is. So, oftentimes, that starts with a physical examination, often in combination with an ENT, or a head and neck surgeon. Oftentimes, that will involve endoscopy, which is a camera that the ENT uses to look very closely and carefully on the extent of the tumor itself. 

Additionally, we generally tend to use imaging as well, in order to stage or determine the extent of where the tumor might have spread to. Oftentimes, that involves imaging of the head and neck, of course, so that’s sometimes a CT scan, or an MRI scan. Oftentimes, it involves imaging of the chest to see if there’s been any spread to the chest or the lungs, that’s oftentimes a CT scan of the chest.  

And typically, that also involves, in many cases, a PET CT scan, which is a specialized scan that actually looks at the whole body and identifies where, in as precise a manner as we can determine, where the cancer has spread to.  

So, I would say that’s generally the overview. Some of the subtypes may have some other tests that may be specific to your specific scenario, but I think those are some of the more general staging evaluations that we do. 

Understanding the Types of Head and Neck Cancer

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Understanding the Types of Head and Neck Cancer from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Which cancers are considered “head and neck cancer”? Expert Dr. Ari Rosenberg shares an overview of the types of head and neck cancer and their location in the body.

Dr. Ari Rosenberg is a medical oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Rosenberg.

See More From The Pro-Active Head and Neck Cancer Patient Toolkit

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Expert Advice for Newly Diagnosed Head and Neck Cancer Patients

Transcript:

Katherine:

Well, let’s start by understanding what head and neck cancer is. Is it a group of cancers? 

Dr. Rosenberg:

Yeah, that’s a great question. So, head and neck cancer is really any type of cancer that develops from the head and neck area. Generally arising from sometimes the mouth, the throat, the voice box are some of the more common areas, but even the sinuses or the nasal cavities are some other areas where head and neck cancer can arise.  

The majority of head and neck cancers are actually called squamous cell carcinoma. About 95 percent are squamous cell carcinomas, and they tend to arrive from the mucosal lining of some of these different parts of the head and neck area.  

However, the other 5 percent are other types of head and neck cancers, such as salivary gland cancers, or other rare types of cancers that can also arise in the head and neck.  

And within head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, there’s really two different types that we think about – in 2023 at least. One is HPV-associated squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, which is associated with a virus called HPV, or human papillomavirus. And, of course, we also see HPV-negative, or non-HPV-related cancers, which are the squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck that can be associated, for example, with smoking or alcohol as the major cause of effect. 

Expert Advice for Newly Diagnosed Head and Neck Cancer Patients

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Expert Advice for Newly Diagnosed Head and Neck Cancer Patients from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What steps should newly diagnosed head and neck cancer patients take following a diagnosis? Dr. Jessica Geiger shares advice to help patients play an active role in their care.

Dr. Jessica Geiger is a medical oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Learn more about Dr. Geiger. 

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Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What three key pieces of advice would you have for a patient who’s just been diagnosed with head and neck cancer?  

Dr. Jessica Geiger:

Well, first, obviously, you have to see an oncologist you have trust and faith in. 

And whether that oncologist is a surgical oncologist which for this disease would be a head and neck cancer specialist, an ENT, or a head and neck surgeon. So, just make sure that you are comfortable with your team, because it can be a very long process in terms of treatment as well as recovery and ongoing surveillance. That’s number one. I think number two is seek out clinical trials if you have the opportunity to do that. This is a disease that’s not rare, but it’s not as common as breast cancer or colon cancer or prostate cancer. You could go to almost any general practicing medical oncology office, and they may or may not have very many head and neck cancer patients at a given time, because it’s much rarer compared to the other more common adult cancers. 

So, if you have the opportunity to seek out a clinical trial, I think that is great because we don’t have a lot of different types of therapies like you see with other cancers. 

Katherine Banwell:

Yeah. 

Dr. Jessica Geiger:

And then number three, and I can’t stress this enough, even early on in your head and neck cancer journey, again, whether it’s a very early-stage cancer or later-stage cancer. I think getting involved with the appropriate support specialties, meaning speech and language pathology, dental care, occupational therapy.  We couldn’t do what we do without some of these support specialties. And especially speech and language pathology for swallowing, it can’t be stressed enough that early intervention can be really meaningful and really impactful on function after head and neck cancer treatment.  

Katherine Banwell:

Mm-hm.  Dr. Geiger, what is your advice to patients who may feel like they’re hurting feelings by seeking a specialist or even a second opinion?  

Dr. Jessica Geiger:

So, first of all, I know it’s easier said than done, you shouldn’t worry about hurting anyone’s feelings. At the end of the day, you need to be in charge of your health. And you need to be an advocate for yourself or an advocate to your family members who may be going through this. So, I think you need to do what is best for you and what you feel most comfortable about. And if that is seeking an opinion elsewhere, I think if your provider – you’re asking for a second opinion gets their feelings hurt or is a bit offended. I would consider that to be a pretty big red flag. I have patients all the time who may ask me for a second opinion, or they want to go to a different institution for an opinion to see what else is out there. And sometimes I even offer to reach out to different contacts that I know at different other institutions if there’s something that I think may be better than what I can offer them with what we have. 

Especially when it comes to clinical trials. So, I would just try to empower the patients to – this is your life. This is your health. And you can’t worry about what us in the medical profession are going to worry about. For most of us, I would say there’s a lot of patients. We want to do what is best for each and every one of them. And if it’s not with us, then please let me help you find someone who is better for you. 

What Are the Types of Head and Neck Cancer?

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What Are the Types of Head and Neck Cancer? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What is head and neck cancer? What cancers are included in this classification? Dr. Jessica Geiger provides a definition and reviews the main types of head and neck cancer.

Dr. Jessica Geiger is a medical oncologist at the Cleveland Clinic. Learn more about Dr. Geiger. 

See More From The Pro-Active Head and Neck Cancer Patient Toolkit

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What Do Patients Need to Know About Head and Neck Cancer Research?

Transcript:

Katherine Banwell:

What is head and neck cancer? 

Dr. Jessica Geiger:

Head and neck cancer is sort of a broad term to include all cancers, all malignancies within the upper aero-digestive system. When we think about head and neck cancer, the vast majority of those cancers are going to be squamous cell carcinomas that start anywhere from the tip of the tongue to the back of the throat to the voice box area. But head and neck cancer can also include cancer of the salivary glands, skull base, or sinus cancers as well.   

Katherine Banwell:

What are the types of head and neck cancer? And where can they start in the body? 

Dr. Jessica Geiger:

There are several different types. The majority of them are called squamous cell carcinomas. Squamous cell cancers or squamous cell carcinoma encompasses over 90 percent of head and neck cancers.  

And those can start anywhere on the tip of the tongue, anywhere in the oral cavity, the tonsils, the back of the throat called the oropharynx, or also in the larynx or around the voice box in those areas. But head and neck cancer can also include salivary gland cancers of which there are dozens of different recognized histologies.  These are cancers of the larger, major salivary glands like the parotid glands or the submandibular glands. But they can also include cancers of minor salivary glands that aren’t even named but are found all over the upper aero-digestive mucosa and are there. Head and neck cancers can also include what we refer to as skull-based tumors or midline sinus, peri-sinus cancers as well.