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For Patients Make an Appointment Encyclopedia Articles about Ear, Nose and Throat

Swallowing Function after the Treatment of Tonsil Cancer – A Valid Quality of Life Concern

One of the most devastating long-term side effects of standard treatment options for tonsil cancer is permanent difficulty swallowing food by mouth with the possible need for a permanent gastrostomy tube placed to feed the patient directly into the stomach. Chemoradiation for tonsil and tongue base cancer was developed as a technique in the 1980's to avoid the devastation of radical open surgical techniques for tonsil cancer that existed at that time. While this was a major advance three decades ago and helped patients to avoid the radical surgery of the day, long-term studies reveal that when patients are treated with chemoradiation alone for tonsil and tongue base cancer in an effort to avoid surgery, even at the best institutions in the world, about 10% (1 in 10) of patients have the need for a permanent stomach tube after treatment. In less-experienced centers, the percentage of patients needing long-term stomach tubes can be almost four times higher (approximately 40%).

A recent study presented by Penn Medicine's TransOral Robotic Surgery (TORS) Team revealed that, among patients with oropharyngeal cancer (about the tonsil and tongue base), only 2% of patients needed a long-term stomach tube and, in fact, none of the patients who were treated with TORS at Penn and then went on to obtain post-operative radiation at Penn Medicine needed a permanent stomach tube. This is a major step toward improving the long-term quality of life in patients with tonsil cancer.

 

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