Chemotherapy options

Chemotherapy is the use of anticancer drugs designed to destroy cancer cells or impede their ability to grow and reproduce. Head and neck chemotherapy treatments are typically reserved for patients whose cancer has metastasized to the bone or elsewhere in the body.

Head and neck cancer chemotherapy treatments are used in three primary ways:

• Systemic: This treatment method means that chemotherapy drugs circulate through the bloodstream to cancer cells through the body. 
• Neoadjuvant: This treatment method refers to medicines that are administered before surgery with the goal of reducing the size of a tumor or killing cancer cells that may have spread.   
• Adjuvant: Used after surgery or radiation, this method is designed to destroy cancer cells that were not removed during surgery, and is used to prevent cancer from spreading to other parts of the body.