HEAD AND NECK CANCERS: The American Cancer Society predicts nearly 30,000 new cases of cancer in the oral cavity and pharynx will be diagnosed in 2005. It is more common in men than women -- primarily in men over age 50. People who use tobacco products and alcohol heavily are at an increased risk. Signs of oral cancer may include a sore that bleeds easily and doesn’t heal, a lump or a thickening, a red or white patch that doesn’t go away, or difficulties swallowing.

TREATMENTS: Surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy are all used, depending on many factors. Bill Carroll, M.D., an otolaryngologist at the University of Alabama says, “In the last 10 years or so, a lot more attempts are being made to treat patients non-surgically to avoid the functional and anatomic problems that come from surgery in the head and neck area.” As a result, doctors are using aggressive treatments of chemotherapy and radiation. Dr. Carroll says, “Radiation and chemotherapy are very effective in controlling a lot of these cancers, so the cancer cells die, but there is a price to be paid in the normal tissue.”

Radiation causes a lot of scar tissue, so patients lose not only many of the salivary glands but also the normal flexibility of the tissue. As a result, patients have severe pain while undergoing treatment. Patients have a feeding tube inserted prior to the beginning of treatment so at the height of their pain they can still get nutrients.

NEW IDEA: Dr. Carroll and his colleagues began to notice that patients who would really push themselves to swallow through treatment had an easier time swallowing after their treatments were completed. Researchers now have a speech pathologist work with patients before and during treatment to teach them exercises to continue to stretch the tissue, to avoid some of the scarring. The exercises themselves, according to Dr. Carroll, are not unique. They are movement and strengthening exercises that most speech and language pathologists use regularly. Patients often have such severe tightening of the tissue that they also have to have them dilated or stretched out with balloons or medical dilators. They have this done the first time while under anesthesia and then after as an outpatient basis.

FUTURE: Dr. Carroll says so far they have worked with only a small group of patients and hope to study this on a larger scale in the coming year. He adds one of the benefits is that the only cost being added is that of working with a speech pathologist, and in the end, this may prove to lower the overall cost of medical complications during and after treatment.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Hank Black
Media Relations
University of Alabama at Birmingham
AB 1320
1530 3rd Avenue S.
Birmingham, AL 35294-0113
(205) 934-8938