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5 treatment settings, 3 with more than one named option. Each section lays out the options the standard of care names, what each is for, the trials behind them with their recorded results, the side effects and cautions on record, and questions to ask. Built from the cancer page's standard-of-care rows; nothing here is advice for your case.
Transoral laser microsurgery or radiotherapy alone; both cure most patients and preserve the voice.
IMRT and IGRT shape the radiation beam to the tumour's outline from multiple angles and check the patient's position with a scan before every session, so surrounding organs receive less dose. Fewer, larger doses are now standard in breast and prostate cancer, but a low-dose bath still spreads across normal tissue.
Fewer, larger daily doses instead of the classic five to seven weeks of small ones. Large trials in breast and prostate cancer showed the same control with the same or fewer late effects and far less time in hospital.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Concurrent cisplatin chemoradiation (RTOG 91-11); induction chemotherapy for selection in some centres.
Cisplatin is the original platinum chemotherapy, discovered by accident in 1965; it cures testicular cancer and makes radiation work better in cervical and head and neck cancer.
Larynx preservation at 2 years 88% (concurrent) vs 75% (induction) vs 70% (radiotherapy alone).
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Total laryngectomy with neck dissection and postoperative radiotherapy or chemoradiation; voice prosthesis rehabilitation.
IMRT and IGRT shape the radiation beam to the tumour's outline from multiple angles and check the patient's position with a scan before every session, so surrounding organs receive less dose. Fewer, larger doses are now standard in breast and prostate cancer, but a low-dose bath still spreads across normal tissue.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Salvage laryngectomy after radiotherapy failure; pembrolizumab-based therapy for metastatic disease (KEYNOTE-048).
Pembrolizumab is a PD-1 blocking antibody approved in more than 40 settings, from melanoma and lung cancer to the first tumour-agnostic approval for mismatch-repair-deficient tumours in 2017, and before and after surgery in triple-negative breast cancer. A subcutaneous form arrived in 2025, and it is the backbone partner for ADCs and personalised neoantigen vaccines.
Cetuximab is a chimeric antibody that blocks the EGFR growth receptor. It is used with FOLFIRI or FOLFOX in RAS wild-type, left-sided bowel cancer, with encorafenib in BRAF V600E disease, with KRAS G12C inhibitors, and with radiation or chemotherapy in head and neck cancer; RAS-mutant tumours gain nothing and may be harmed, so RAS testing comes first.
OS 14.9 vs 10.7 months (CPS ≥20, monotherapy); 13.0 vs 10.7 (all, with chemotherapy).
| Side effect | Any grade | Grade 3+ |
|---|---|---|
| Hypothyroidism (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 8% | - |
| Pneumonitis (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 3.4% | - |
| Colitis (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 1.7% | - |
| Hepatitis (immune-mediated) · Pooled monotherapy data, >2,800 patients | 0.7% | - |
Rates from the label or pivotal trial as recorded on the product page; each grade 3+ figure links to its source.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.
Smoking cessation and alcohol reduction; no screening programme exists.
Stopping smoking after a cancer diagnosis improves survival, reduces treatment complications and second cancers, and is the single most effective supportive intervention that oncology services still routinely fail to deliver.
Alcohol causes at least seven cancers and there is no safe threshold. Price, availability and cancer warning labels are the tools that work; most people still do not know alcohol causes cancer.
No trial record is attached to this row yet. The trials tab lists what is recruiting and the landmark trials for this cancer.
Add these to your appointment list, or take the full question set for this cancer.