In some cases of very advanced head and neck cancer, the treatment team may talk to you about palliative treatment. This aims to improve your quality of life by managing the symptoms without trying to cure the disease. When used as palliative treatment, radiation therapy and chemotherapy or other drug therapies can help manage pain and other symptoms, and may slow the cancer’s spread.
For more on this, see our general section on Palliative care and Living with advanced cancer.
→ READ MORE: Managing side effects
Watch this short video on how palliative treatment aims to manage symptoms and improve people’s quality of life without trying to cure the disease.
Podcast: Treatment Options for Advanced Cancer
Listen to more of our podcast for people affected by advanced cancer
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A/Prof Martin Batstone, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon and Director of the Maxillofacial Unit, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, QLD; Polly Baldwin, 13 11 20 Consultant, Cancer Council SA; Martin Boyle, Consumer; Dr Teresa Brown, Assistant Director Dietetics, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Honorary Associate Professor, University of Queensland, QLD; Dr Hayley Dixon, Head, Clinical Support Dentistry Department, WSLHD Oral Health Services, Public Health Dentistry Specialist, NSW; Head and Neck Cancer Care Nursing Team, Royal Melbourne Hospital, VIC; Rhys Hughes, Senior Speech Pathologist, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, VIC; Dr Annette Lim, Medical Oncologist and Clinician Researcher – Head and Neck and Non-melanoma Skin Cancer, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, VIC; Dr Sweet Ping Ng, Radiation Oncologist, Austin Health, VIC; Deb Pickersgill, Senior Clinical Exercise Physiologist, Queensland Sports Medicine Centre, QLD; John Spurr, Consumer; Kate Woodhead, Physiotherapist, St Vincent’s Health, Melbourne, VIC; A/Prof Sue-Ching Yeoh, Oral Medicine Specialist, University of Sydney, Sydney Oral Medicine, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, NSW.
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