Signs, Symptoms, and Diagnosis of Head & Neck Cancer | Memorial Sloan Kettering

so let's take a half a step back dr. Shah here because we've been talking about we got a little bit ahead of ourselves some head and neck cancers are probably fairly obvious they present with a big lump or tumor or something but what are some of the signs and symptoms things that people might be on the lookout for I had neck you know that is usually the common cause of delay in diagnosis because both the patient and even their primary care physicians do not appreciate or at least do not manifest awareness about the possibility of a cancer to give you an example stuffy nose running nose blockage in the nose occasional bleeding from the nose can all be early manifestations of a cancer of the sinuses slight sore throat some sensation of something stuck in the throat a pain in the ear slight difficulty in swallowing or often ignored as this sore throat and patients themselves often buy over-the-counter medicine the family practitioner sometimes indiscriminately prescribes antibiotics one two three four courses over a couple of months which are lost their early diagnosis could have been made so I think you know awareness is a crucial part of the possibility of a head neck cancer and the warning signs are change in your voice that lasts longer than two weeks persistent sore throat lasting more than three three to four weeks bleeding either from the nose or spitting spitting up blood in your phlegm a lump in the neck that doesn't go away more than two three weeks in after it's observed are all indications to seek out do I have a head and neck problem feel free to ask your family practitioner should I be seeing a specialist this lump has been there for three weeks we have taken antibiotics for ten days it hasn't gone away should this be a cause for concern and you shouldn't feel bad for asking your doctor and then oral cancer white spots the sort of soy sauce in the mouth that you see in with a mirror or your dentist should while you're brushing your teeth or if you bring it to the attention of your dentist all of this thing you know the issue is many times patients feel shy about asking their physician or their dentist should I be concerned and I think we should be open about it should I be concerned about it doctor and when you ask that question the index of Avernus on the part of the physician goes up and that may bring about a potential tumor which may be hiding behind and we need to delight you've just described about a half-dozen symptoms that I have so what what what I think Maggie here comments yes please but the key here is persistence absolutely any of symptoms I mentioned lasting more than two three weeks should call for a proper head and neck examination it may be nothing but you're a reassurance that I've checked it out all right I'll see you afterwards back here dr. Patel so we have some some exam I mean there's some suspicion there there are some symptoms there what's the next step then and making the diagnosis dr. Ganley said sometimes a biopsy but not always what's what would be the next step well I think that the next step as a doctor should I mention is to find yourself an expert who you know does this kind of work for a living so you want an expert pair of eyes and an expert pair of hands to check you out and make sure that you know you get the right opinion as to what the next step would be and if there is a reasonable index of suspicion on the part of the of the expert who's examining you they would you know initiate a whole process of investigation and a biopsy is not often the most immediate step that the physician might take for instance you may need a scan a CT scan or an ultrasound or some sort of imaging study to actually document the the process before the physician goes in and and violates the anatomy in that area by doing a biopsy and a biopsy is it's the definitive modality where you would be able to draw out some tissue from that lump or from the lesion send it off to the pathology lab and the pathologist would be able to tell the physician what kind of lesion they're seeing under the microscope so eventually yes a biopsy would be necessary an oral cancer might just be a scraping of the white spot larynx you'd want to put a scope down and take a look and see what's going right down there that sort of thing I mean scrapings generally we don't advocate scrapings in our practice but in the community yes dentists use scrapings for the larynx or the voice box or the back part of your throat the pharynx we now have technology that we can use in the in the office you know years ago you had to go to the operating room do the biopsy under general as small flexible school and now we have flexible scopes with my op C channels which you know we use routinely in the office and they're very reliable and it's a less invasive way of achieving a diagnosis in the office so it's a variety of things it you know shouldn't immediately expect let's have a biopsy right I mean and in fact there are a lot of patients who come in expecting a biopsy right and most times yes a biopsy would be appropriate but there are situations where you want to really hold off before you go in and attempt to biopsy good doctor Ganley one of the things that that we dr. Shah sort of mentioned briefly but let's talk about it a little bit and into more detail so that people understand this as well the risk factors here because a lot of that has to do with lifestyle tell me about some of the risk factors for head and neck cancers well I think everyone knows that cancer of the mouth and the larynx and the throats the main two risk factors are smoking and alcohol smoking being the main factor and alcohol is also a factor on its own but actually potentiates the carcinogenic effects of smoking so the two together smoking plus alcohol are the greatest risk factors and most recently we've heard from some baseball players smokeless tobacco as well the chewing the snuff the something between your lip and gum as they say has led to at least according to baseball players they think that they that led to their cancers that's right yeah so true chewing tobacco this is it's a phenomenon of baseball players in America but but it's mainly that the cancel that that causes is mainly seen in countries such as India where chewing tobacco is extremely common and you get a cancer exactly where the tobacco resides source and the so in fact cancer of the the cheek or the buccal mucosa is one of the most common cancers and and yeah I'm sure dr. Shah and dr. Patel have can talk or not as it's regards to our baseball players obviously there's some eagerness to try and educate the baseball players that this is a potential source of cancer for them and I know there's a lot of education going on to try and stop this taking place so that young people are not influenced by that

Channel: Memorial Sloan Kettering

Views: 41,184

Rating: 4.7883596 out of 5

Keywords: head cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, Snehal Patel, MSKCC, neck cancer, msk, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Jatin Shah, Sloan Kettering

Id: f0HRXbBz8ms

Length: 8min 59sec (539 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 13 2015