Throat Cancer Symptoms

Throat cancer is also known as laryngeal cancer, cancer of the glottis, cancer of the pharynx or vocal cord cancer. Like all other cancers, recognising the symptoms, or in other words, diagnosing the cancer in early stages improve the chances of recovery. Most commonly, the throat cancer patients suffer from lump or sore that is persistent, sore throat or cough that doesn’t heal.

More specific symptoms of throat cancer are:

• ore throat that is persistent and is accompanied by coughing. Antibiotics are not able to treat this condition.
• Voice becoming hoarse or a change in voice is noticed.
• Difficulty in healing of lesion or lump on the lip. It may persist for weeks.
• Problem in swallowing or discomfort including pain when you try to chew.
• Constant feeling of lump in the throat.
• Red or white patch visible on tongue, gums or the mouth’s lining.
• Inexplicable numbness, pain and even bleeding in the mouth.
• Swollen neck or swelling of the lymph nodes.
• Frequent pain in the ear or neck.
• Swollen jaw or pain in the jaw.
• Bad breath.
• Blood coming out in coughs.
• Wheezing and abnormally high-pitched breathing sounds.
• Weight loss for apparent no reason.

Some of the other throat cancer symptoms that can trouble the patient are:

• Paralysis or numbness in the facial muscles.
• Persisting pain in the neck.
• Persisting pain in the face.

If you have the above symptoms, it may not mean that you suffer from throat cancer necessarily. But if you happen to find these symptoms affecting you, it would be prudent to visit your doctor or any other qualified medical professionals and check for throat cancer. If your family has a history of throat cancers or any other cancer, it would be advisable for you to get yourself tested for throat cancer. This is particularly important if you find these symptoms in you for more than 2 weeks. Your health care provider would know how to make you undergo a comprehensive testing procedure and suggest the appropriate treatment.

Some of the treatment procedures for   are chemotherapy and radiation therapy. But it would be advisable that you are so vigilant about your health that this condition gets diagnosed in the earliest of stages, after which you do not need to worry about the complicated procedures of treatment. It would be better if these conditions could be controlled by lifestyle modifications.