3 first symptoms of throat cancer

 A dull headache, tinnitus, stuffy nose is usually on one side of your body could the symptoms at the early stage of throat cancer.

Throat cancer is top cancer in head and neck cancers and the 5th in general cancer. It can be cured completely if patients have early detection, right and timely treatment. At late stages, treatment can bring positive results in improving the quality and prolong life.

According to Director of the Center of Nuclear Medicine and Oncology, the rate of throat cancer patients who live for 5 more years after treatment reaches 80% to 90% at phase 1 and phase 2, 30% to 40% at phase 3 and 15% at the last phase. However, 90% to 97% of the patients in the US have detected the disease at phase 3 and 4.

At the first phase, the manifestations of the disease are vague, discreet and are easy to be misdiagnosed to other diseases. When the symptoms were clear, the throat cancer has already been in last phases.

At first, patients usually have these symptoms such as:

- Pervasive and insidious headaches, usually on one side.

- Tinnitus, usually on one side.

- Stuffy nose on one side, it may be serious or minor, may include blood.

At last phases, the tumor of throat cancer increase size, be invasive so the patients will have severe headaches, Ascending tinnitus, hearing loss or reduced, the patients may be deaf, constant stuffy nose, bleeding nose. Normal treatment is no longer adaptable.

When there are such manifestations, the patients will be appointed as sub-clinical tests to confirm the diagnosis. The cause has not been clearly defined, however, there are many hypotheses:

- Virus: many studies showed that throat cancer is related to the epstein-Barr virus.

- Heredity: many throat cancers cases are found in the same family.

- Environment: damaged cell function of lymphoid T in combination with the epstein-Barr virus are 2 high-risk factors which have been identified.

- Food and processing: processed food by fermenting such as alcohol, wine, beer, salted fishes or pickles contains nitrosamine which is related to some kinds of cancer in gastrointestinal tract and throat.