Patients with cancer of the larynx who are treated at teaching and research hospitals that see high volumes of such patients are the least likely to die within a year of their diagnoses, researchers said at the annual meeting of the American Head and Neck Society.
Mounting evidence suggests that human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer has an improved prognosis compared with HPV-negative disease. The most recent supportive evidence comes from an analysis of a Phase III trial presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
What needs to be in the follow-up of certain patients who have undergone treatment for thyroid cancer? Uncertainties still exist, but change is in the air. The 2009 American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines promise to clarify at least some issues that affect practice.
PHOENIX-Just how useful are PET or PET-CT in identifying residual occult nodal disease in patients with head and neck cancer? Two presentations at the 2009 Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meeting addressed this topic.
PHOENIX-Performing salvage surgery after chemoradiation or radiation treatment for laryngeal cancer patients, rather than just performing primary surgery right away, appears to lead to more complications with patients’ tracheoesophageal voice prostheses, according to a retrospective study reported by researchers here.
Oral, head and neck cancer screening is critical to early detection-but otolaryngologists often find that they aren’t reaching the populations at highest risk for the disease. Consequently, many physicians are taking the initiative to develop novel and creative outreach programs to target people who are likely to regularly use tobacco and alcohol, as well as individuals who do not have ready access to health care.
ORLANDO-Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is considered standard treatment for unresectable advanced head and neck cancer. A new study presented at the 2009 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) suggests that induction chemotherapy (IC) delivered before CRT significantly improved time to treatment failure (TTF) compared with standard upfront CRT alone in this setting.
Otolaryngologists-head and neck surgeons have suggested that performing tonsillectomy among patients who present with neck metastases from an occult primary tumor can identify a high percentage of primary tumors-an even better success rate in locating the malignancies than can be obtained with deep tonsil biopsy.