ABSTRACT
Despite the overall advances in terms of the accuracy of diagnosis and improvements in treatments, it is important to remember that some patients with head and neck cancer will die from their disease. In 2003, head and neck cancer accounted for around 7,000 cases per year in England and Wales (1). In 2012, however, a total of 11,725 head and neck cancers were diagnosed and this represented a year on year increase in the number of diagnoses, with “lip, tongue and oral cavity” cancer being the most common grouping (3,864 cases) (2). A recent report from England from 2012 presented an analysis of death certificates and indicated that 3,020 people died from a cancer of the head and neck (0.6% of all deaths) (2). Further, the report found that one in five men and one in six women died within a year of diagnosis and that deaths from head and neck cancer tended to occur at a younger age compared with deaths from “all cancers” and “all causes.”
