The complexities of treating head and neck cancer can be challenging. In order to provide the best outcomes for patients, the importance of collaboration when treating head and neck tumors cannot be understated. Artful collaboration between different disciplines and coordinated care among specialists is crucial to providing the best treatment outcomes.

“As a large single-specialty practice, providing care to a sophisticated, metropolitan area such as Orlando, subspecialization within our practice has become a necessity.” says Henry N. Ho, M.D., board certified otolaryngologist, specializing in head and neck cancer, president of The Ear, Nose, Throat and Plastic Surgery Associates and co-director of the Head and Neck Program at the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute. “My special interest is in the management of head and neck tumors. We have weekly tumor board meetings in which we discuss the management of head and neck tumors with our surgical and non-surgical colleagues.”

What Are the Complexities of Head and Neck Tumor Treatment?

While surgery is typically the primary means of treating most head and neck tumors, the ENT surgeon will often need to employ treatment and diagnostic modalities from other disciplines to effectively treat the patient, such as:

• Head and neck reconstructive surgery
• Radiation oncology
• Medical oncology
• Pathology
• Radiology

Because vital areas of the anatomy are involved, the treatment process for head and neck tumors can sometimes cause impairment to speech, breathing, swallowing, communication and musculoskeletal functioning. In order to optimize the final outcome and quality of life for the patient, effective multidisciplinary team collaboration is essential.

The Ear, Nose, Throat and Plastic Surgery Associates, P.A., provides its patients with an academic level speech pathology department that is invaluable in preserving and restoring speech and swallowing, where those functions are at risk.

Through regular and constant interaction, a tumor board can provide cancer patients with the most up to date care practices. It enhances the quality of patient care by collaborative sharing of ideas of each discipline with the others.

“Our colleagues in radiation therapy, our colleagues in medical oncology, our pathology colleagues, our radiology colleagues, get together weekly and discuss patients during our tumor board,” says Dr. Ho. “We get to know each other very, very well – they get to know our skill set, our strengths, and weaknesses with regards to management of individual tumors, and I know theirs; and, so, together we come up with the best collaborative approach for head and neck cancer, and that includes thyroid.”

Some evidence has indicated that interdisciplinary care can improve patient results with head and neck cancer. A 2011 study by Friedland and colleagues correlated survival rates and outcomes between head and neck cancer patients managed with or without a multidisciplinary approach. The researchers witnessed a remarkable benefit in the 5-year survival rate for patients with stage 4 head and neck cancer who used multidisciplinary collaborative treatment.

Dr. Ho affirms the value of creating and sustaining a multidisciplinary tumor board and the vital role it plays in providing quality care to patients with head and neck cancer.

“That’s the advantage of coming to a sophisticated urban center like the Florida Hospital Cancer Institute and having access to this kind of collaborative approach,” he says.