Things You Should Know About Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers are the sixth most common cancer worldwide, accounting for about 10% of all malignant tumors, and mainly including 3 categories:

Neck cancers: mainly thyroid cancer;

Ear, nose, throat (ENT) cancers: mainly include nasopharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer, and paranasal sinus cancer;

Oral and maxillofacial cancers: mainly include tongue cancer, gum cancer, and cheek cancer.

The number of newly diagnosed cases of head and neck cancers worldwide each year exceeds 600,000. The most common lesions are the oral cavity, pharynx and larynx, and more than 90% are squamous cell carcinomas. In recent years, the global incidence of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma has increased significantly, especially among women.

• The Main Cause of Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancer is closely related to the environment and daily habits, such as smoking, drinking, ultraviolet (UV) exposure, especially chemical exposure, and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. This type of cancer is often aggressive, and most patients are already at an advanced stage and are accompanied by secondary tumors at the time of diagnosis.

• The Symptoms of Head and Neck Cancers

Symptoms vary depending on the type of cancer. The common symptoms are mouth ulcers that do not heal for more than two weeks, a swelling on the lips, mouth, or throat, difficulty in chewing or swallowing, continuous nasal congestion or nose bleeding, swelling of the neck or jaw, constant hoarse or change in voice, earache, restricted tongue extension, pain in the face or upper jaw, abnormal white or red patches on the oral mucosa, etc.

When one of the symptoms has not been relieved for more than four weeks, you’d better go to the hospital as soon as possible for a comprehensive examination.

• The Treatment and Prevention of Head and Neck Cancers

For people who have already suffered from head and neck cancer, surgery plus chemotherapy is the standard treatment. The traditional treatment methods mainly include surgical treatment (patients with early head and neck cancer can be treated by surgery, but it is not suitable for nasopharyngeal cancer patients), radiotherapy (an important treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma), chemotherapy (reduce the scope of lesions and prevent patients from recurrence and metastasis after surgery).

However, most people are already at an advanced stage when they are diagnosed, causing poor prognosis, and a low five-year survival rate. Thus, new and efficient therapies are still in urgent need and oncolytic virotherapy is one of the cutting-edge treatments.

"Oncolytic virotherapy has been proved to be a potential treatment with excellent safety profiles in multiple human trials, and head and neck cancers are favorable solid tumors for this method," introduced by an expert on oncolytic virus research at Creative Biolabs.

Multiple viruses have been used including herpes viruses, reovirus, adenoviruses, measles, vaccinia and a variety of others. Many clinical trials have studied oncolytic viruses and very few have demonstrated dose-limiting toxicities. For example, Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) has already shown promise as an oncolytic virotherapy for head and neck cancers. It is the first oncolytic virus approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and more research is anticipated to follow this track.

Head and neck cancer has a higher chance of recovery if it is detected early, but if it is treated at a later stage, only about 30%-40% of patients can be cured without recurrence. Therefore, no matter what kind of disease, it is necessary to prevent and treat early. The first advice for preventing head and neck cancer is quitting smoke or other tobacco products. If you drink alcohol, do so in moderation. Besides, protecting yourself against HPV infection by practicing safe sex and getting the HPV vaccine is important. For those working in the chemical industry, wearing a protective face mask when exposed to toxic fumes and dust can be helpful.

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