Your Options for Oral Cancer Therapy

You may get more than one kind of treatment for oral cancer. If so, it’s called combination treatment, or multimodality treatment.¹ You may have more than one of these treatments:^1,2

• Surgery

• Radiation

• Chemotherapy

Combining two or more of these treatments may be more effective that using just one.^1,2 Based on the stage of your cancer, your oncologist will select a primary therapy. This is the therapy that will have the greatest impact on the cancer. One or more other therapies may then be added to boost the chance of a cure.¹ For instance, you may have surgery and chemotherapy. Or you may have surgery and radiation. You may even have all three types of care.^1,2

The order that you get treatments has a specific name. For instance, when you have a treatment before having surgery, it is called neoadjuvant treatment.⁴ You may have chemotherapy or radiation before surgery to help shrink the tumor and keep the cancer from spreading.^4,5

Or you may have treatment after surgery, called adjuvant treatment.³ Chemotherapy or radiation soon after surgery aims to kill any cancer cells that are left.⁵

¹ “A Comparison of Multimodal Therapy and Surgery for Esophageal Adenocarcinoma” Thomas N. Walsh, M.D., et al., N Engl J Med 1996; 335:462-467 August 15, 1996 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199608153350702?keytype2=tf_ipsecsha&ijkey=4e3bac586ad21e07b525fd9c493498df123d4637& Accessed 2010.

² “Treatment: State of the Science Multidisciplinary Tumor Board Concept” CDC Oral Cancer Background Papers, Chapter 6. www.oralcancerfoundation.org/cdc/cdc_chapter6.htm Accessed 2010.

³ “Dictionary of Cancer Terms: Adjuvant Therapy.” National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. www.cancer.gov/dictionary/?searchTxt=adjuvant&btnGo.x=0&btnGo.y=0&sgroup=Starts+with&lang= Accessed 2010.

⁴ “Dictionary of Cancer Terms: Neoadjuvant Therapy.” National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health. www.cancer.gov/dictionary/?searchTxt=neoadjuvant Accessed 2010.

⁵ “Radiation Therapy and You: Support for People with Cancer: Questions and Answers about Radiation Therapy.” National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, April 20, 2007. www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/radiation-therapy-and-you/page2 Accessed 2010.