How is head and neck cancer diagnosed?
Getting started—visit your doctor.
If you think you have symptoms of head and neck cancer, see a doctor right away.
Your doctor will ask questions about your symptoms, your health history, and risk
factors for cancers of the head and neck, such as smoking and alcohol use.
To determine whether or not a person has head and neck cancer, a healthcare professional
may recommend any of several different tests, called “diagnostic tests.”
These include physical examinations, imaging tests (to make pictures of the body
and any tumors in it), and biopsies (in which samples of suspicious tissue are cut out of the body and tested in a lab).
Here are the main tests that are used to diagnose head and neck cancer:
- Physical examination: Doctors may inspect the mouth and nose, the
neck and throat, and the tongue using a small mirror and/or lights. They may also
feel for lumps on the neck, cheeks, lips, and gums
- Endoscopy: Using a thin, lighted tube called an endoscope, a doctor
can examine the throat and the voice box (the pharynx and larynx). The endoscope
can also be inserted through the nose to examine the sinuses
- Laboratory tests: These tests examine blood, urine, and other substances
from the body for cancerous cells
- X-rays: X-rays help doctors see areas inside the head and neck
- CT or CAT scan: This type of scan uses X-rays to make a series
of images of areas inside the head and neck
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): An MRI is a scan using radio
waves and strong magnets in place of X-rays. The body absorbs the radio waves,
and this can reveal certain diseases when a computer translates the pattern of absorbed
waves back into a detailed picture of the body’s tissues
- PET scan: This scan uses a special type of sugar—which is absorbed
by cancer cells and shows up as dark when scanned—to look for the disease
- Biopsy: In this exam, tissue is removed from the body, then studied
under a microscope by a doctor called a pathologist.
In the end, a biopsy is the only sure way to tell whether or not someone has cancer
Get the facts about head
and neck cancer treatment