Major Head and Neck Surgery Instructions

Head and neck malignancies can occur due to tobacco abuse, as well as alcohol abuse. While most patients have these risk factors for head and neck malignancies, a small minority of patients suffer from these cancers for unknown genetic or environmental reasons.

We recommend that every patient who has a head and neck cancer stop using tobacco and alcohol, and focus on good and adequate nutrition. This will prepare you for treatment and the best possible outcome.

There are a number of major head and neck procedures that are performed for treatment of malignancies of the sinuses, mouth, tongue, throat, voice box and upper esophagus, as well as malignancies that have spread to the neck. Your surgeon will discuss these with you in detail during an office visit or during your preoperative evaluation.

In general, you can expect to stay in the hospital four to 10 days for management of healing, and may need to stay in the Intensive Care Unit, depending on the scope of the procedure.

While these procedures can be very scary to patients, we want to assure you that we will take the best possible care to assure that you have a good result from the surgery, and that we have put together a coordinated plan between head and neck surgery, radiation oncology and hematology oncology, to treat and cure your cancer with the greatest possible success.