ENT cancer treatments

The treatment strategy for ENT cancers often combines surgery, radiotherapy and drug treatments (chemotherapy, immunotherapy or targeted therapies). Treatments are selected during a collegial meeting called a multidisciplinary consultation meeting (MCM), during which patients' files are discussed so that each receives a personalized treatment.

With their consent, and following a specific information consultation, 25-30% of patients treated at Institut Curie enter a clinical trial conducted by the institute or in which it participates, which can increase their chances of benefiting from an innovative and effective treatment.

Prior to treatment, Institut Curie carries out a particularly thorough pre-treatment check-up: it is essential to ensure that the patient is in good oral and nutritional health before treatment begins, as this may affect the teeth and mouth, as well as the ability to eat for some time.

Surgery for ENT cancers

If the tumor is accessible, surgery is often the first treatment for ENT cancers. Some procedures can be performed through the nose or mouth, which helps avoid scarring and facilitates recovery.

To ensure complete removal of the cancer cells, a band of healthy tissue around the tumor is also removed, as well as the lymph nodes on one or both sides of the neck. In some cases, the sentinel lymph node technique may be proposed. This technique aims to remove only a small part of the nodes in order to limit the surgical procedure.

The main objective of surgery is to preserve the functions of the affected organ(s) (swallowing, breathing, speaking, etc.) to maintain the patient's quality of life as much as possible. If necessary, a reconstruction of the area can take place at the same time as the excision (surgical removal) of the tumor. It is thus possible to use tissues taken elsewhere on the body (skin, muscles, bones) to recreate a jaw, for example.

The surgical team at Institut Curie performs more than 150 reconstructions of this type per year and offers a great expertise in these very technical procedures.

Radiotherapy for ENT Cancers

Radiotherapy is sometimes essential to treat ENT cancers. It can be used as the main treatment in certain cases of localized ENT cancers that are not accessible for surgical treatment. More commonly, radiotherapy is offered in addition to surgery to improve local control (reduce the risk of relapse) of the disease following the surgical procedure, i.e. adjuvant radiotherapy. It can be combined with chemotherapy in order to make it more effective.

Protontherapy, a highly precise form of radiotherapy, may also be indicated to treat rare tumors at the skull base or orbits. Institut Curie is also one of the only centers in France equipped to provide it.

Chemotherapy for ENT Cancers

Chemotherapy and immunotherapy are known as systemic treatments. In the ENT sphere, they are mainly used to treat advanced or metastatic cancers (which cannot be treated effectively with surgery or radiotherapy alone); thus, they are integral parts of the multimodal therapeutic approach.

Unlike chemotherapy, which acts directly on cancer cells, immunotherapy uses the patient's immune system to fight against cancer cells, and it has been the subject of many promising studies in ENT oncology, in particular, at the D3I Department of Institut Curie, which conducts early trials.