Larynx Cancer
What Is It?
The larynx is another name for the voice box. It is a tube about 2 inches (5cm) long in adults. It sits at the entrance of the windpipe (trachea) in the neck and in front of the food pipe. The food pipe can also be called the gullet or oesophagus. The larynx is the lump you can see in the front of your neck, called the 'Adam’s apple'. There are 3 main parts to the larynx. Cancer can develop in any or all of these parts of the larynx.Like all other parts of the body, the area around the larynx contains lymph nodes/glands.
Symptoms
Common symptoms are:
Hoarseness or change in your voice
Difficulty swallowing
A feeling that there is a lump in your throat
Cough or chest infection
Being short of breath
Bad smelling breath (halitosis)
Weight loss
Ear ache that doesn’t go away (rare)
Treatment
The main treatment options are:Radiotherapy
Surgery
Removing lymph nodes
Chemotherapy
The likelihood of cure will be the same whether you have surgery or radiotherapy. Some people like to have surgery because it is done in one go and they don't like the idea of a long course of radiotherapy treatment. For others, it is more important to try to keep their voice box intact, or possibly not to have an anaesthetic.
For small early stage cancers of the larynx, you can have radiotherapy or surgery. Radiotherapy is the most common form of treatment for laryngeal cancer. This will cure most people with small tumours of the larynx.
Laser surgery can be used for very early stage cancers of the larynx. For larger tumours it is more usual to have surgery than radiotherapy. You may have to have your larynx completely removed. If you have this operation, you will not be able to speak normally afterwards. There are a number of different ways of overcoming this. If you have a valve put in, your voice may be clearer than the hoarse voice you had before your operation. You will also have to have a stoma. This is a hole in your neck, made so that you can breathe after you've had your larynx removed.