• J Otolaryngol · Oct 1980

    Practical palliative care for the patient with terminal head and neck cancer.

    • N R Pashley.
    • J Otolaryngol. 1980 Oct 1;9(5):405-11.

    AbstractHead and neck cancer patients who develop incurable recurrent tumors present the surgical team with unique problems dissimilar to patients with cancer of other areas. When the structures of the head and neck are violated by tumor, the dying process is slow, lingering, and painful; and the anatomic areas involved tend to be visible, difficult to shield from those in attendance, and of course, are very obvious to the patient. This review offers some practical guidelines for the management of head and neck cancer pain, nutrition, anorexia, odor control, mental confusion, and local control of visible tumor. Our approach includes the palliative use of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, and the participation of members of a palliative team by which therapeutic decisions and timing can be individualized for each patient. This system of palliation offers significant advantages to the patient and to the surgeon, and is a new concept applicable to head and neck cancer patients for whom previously little could be offered.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…