The treatment options for throat cancer is complex and must be individualized. This section discusses throat cancer but due to the breadth of this subject, is only able to broach the surface of this subject. As discussed above, the term throat cancer is mostly a lay person term. Actual medical terms for throat cancer depends on the location of the cancer within the thraot and is classified by head and neck cancer doctors as nasopharyngeal cancer, oropharyngeal cancer, hypopharyngeal cancer, or oral cavity cancer. Throat pain, difficulty swallowing, painful swallowing, enlarging lumps in the neck , ear pain, hoarseness, and weight loss are common symptoms associated with throat cancer.
Cancer occurs when some normal cells in the body transform into abnormal or malignant cells.
These malignant cells no longer self-regulate their growth. Instead, theses malignant cells proliferate and grow into adjacent tissue. It is difficult for the body s immune system to identify the cancer cells as something unwanted since these cells originated as normal cells. The mainstays of treatment for cancer are surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. The aim of surgery is, of course, to physically remove the cancer and any local metastasis of the cancer in the neck.