Treatment for laryngeal (larynx) cancer

You will usually be treated in a specialist centre, by a team of healthcare professionals. This is called a multidisciplinary team (MDT).

Your treatment for laryngeal cancer will depend on:

• where the cancer is in the larynx
• the size of the cancer and whether it has spread (stage)
• how fast-growing the cancer is (grade)
• your general health.

For most people, the aim of treatment is to remove or destroy the cancer. Treatment will also try to reduce the chance of the cancer coming back.

Your doctors will plan your treatment carefully to reduce your risk of late or long-term effects. However, you may have some side effects during or after treatment. For example, it could affect your speech, swallowing or appearance. Your cancer doctor and specialist nurse will talk to you about how different treatment may affect you.

The main treatments for cancer of the larynx are:

• radiotherapy
• surgery.

You may also have chemotherapy, targeted therapies or immunotherapy. But you do not usually have these for early stage cancer of the larynx. You may have these treatments on their own or combined.

You may have chemotherapy:

• to reduce the size of the cancer before radiotherapy or surgery (this is rare)
• if the cancer spreads outside the larynx
• if the cancer comes back after radiotherapy.

The most common chemotherapy drugs for treating cancer of the larynx are:

• cisplatin
• fluorouracil
• docetaxel.

Other drugs include:

• carboplatin
• paclitaxel.

We have more information about having chemotherapy and possible side effects.

If the cancer has started to spread some people have treatment with a targeted therapy drug called cetuximab combined with radiotherapy.

If the cancer has spread or comes back and chemotherapy has not worked, you may have an immunotherapy drug called nivolumab.