Cutting-edge therapies are improving the lives of Ohio State cancer patients who experience dysphagia — difficulties with swallowing that can occur after surgery and other treatments. Treatments for cancer — especially head and neck varieties — can save patients’ lives, but sometimes cause side effects that impact their abilities to swallow and speak. Surgeries and radiation therapies are among the procedures that can lead to these types of issues, which include scarring in the mouth and throat. “A lot of head and neck cancers happen on the inside, in the throat and mouth, and on vocal cords,” says Apoorva Ramaswamy, MD, an OSUCCC – James surgeon and a member of the medical advisory board of the National Foundation of Swallow Disorders. “A lot of these cancers affect people's ability to swallow, and surgery, radiation or chemotherapy will be targeted to this area, and can compound the issues.” One of those issues is dysphagia, a relatively broad term given to feelings of difficulty when trying to swallow. Dysphagia can result from a wide variety of causes, including sores in and on the mouth, all the way down to problems in the stomach. Get the full story on swallowing and speech therapies for head and neck cancer patients on our Cancer-Free World Podcast. Listen via the video player above, or on SoundCloud. Head and neck cancer patients often experience oral pharyngeal dysphasia —swallowing difficulties caused by changes to the structures of the mouth and throat. “The muscles can be scarred and weakened, and the lining of the tissues, instead of being smooth and well lubricated, becomes rough and immobile, meaning that you work harder to push the food down,” Ramaswamy says. Click to learn more about head and neck cancer, including risks, symptoms and treatment options at the OSUCCC – James. Cancer surgery can lead to dysphagia for several reasons, including the removal of parts of patients’ soft pallets, while radiation can cause scarring and the thinning out of muscles that aid in swallowing. Ramaswamy and her colleagues address these issues through the latest therapies, including the introduction of material to the affected areas that can restore size and function so that proper closure can occur, enabling patients to fully swallow food and beverages. “By injecting filler in the back of the throat, where it meets the soft palate, we're able to get closure so that that gateway is not open anymore,” she says. Click to learn more about cancer surgery at Ohio State. Cancer and resulting treatments can also weaken vocal cords, affecting patients’ speech and abilities to cough. Ramaswamy uses similar filler treatments to address those issues as well. The injection of fillers and other innovative therapies — including the stretching of the esophagus when it’s narrowed and scarred — can result in significant quality-of-life improvements for patients with head and neck cancers. That impact makes the hard work involved in research and care extremely rewarding for Ramaswamy and her fellow doctors. “At least once a week, a patient will tell me that they ate food through their mouth for the first time in years,” she says. “This is a very exciting time.”