ENT tumours / Head and neck tumours
Proton therapy for ENT tumours
On this page you’ll find important information about possible therapies for your ENT tumour with the aid of proton therapy (PT) at the WPE. This pinpoint-accurate and therefore cautious form of radiotherapy enables the treatment of many benign and malignant ENT and head and neck tumours. At the present time we are treating predominantly advanced head and neck tumours, e.g. nasopharynx cancer (tumours in the nasal pharynx), cancer of the paranasal sinuses, esthesioneuroblastomas and cancer of the salivary gland. The therapy options and the course of therapy at our centre are always oriented to the individual clinical picture of each patient.
Treatable diagnoses
- Acinar cell carcinoma
- Adenoid cystic carcinoma
- Adenocarcinoma
- Carcinomas of the paranasal sinsuses
- Craniofacial tumour
- Esthesioneuroblastoma
- Malignant epithelial tumour
- Mucosal melanoma
- Myoepithelial carcinoma
- Nasopharyngeal carcinoma
- Olfactory neuroblastoma
- Salivary gland carcinoma
- Squamocellular carcinoma
Our Case Management staff will be pleased to advise you personally in all questions and control the therapy at the WPE. In addition, they help you with the compilation of the required documentation and direct you to a radiotherapy specialist. Please contact us even in the event that the ENT tumour relevant for you is not listed here – we examine each individual case in detail.
Even if proton therapy is not the optimum form of treatment we will be pleased to suggest contact partners for you at the West German Tumour Centre (WTZ), with which the WPE is affiliated.
Contact us
The case management of WPE will assist you with questions you may have.
Phone: 0201 723 6600
Frequently asked questions
As a rule, an ENT tumour can be treated with proton therapy provided that your attending medical specialist or oncologist has recommended radiotherapy. However, as your particular clinical picture is decisive, our radio-oncologists examine your personal situation down to the last medical detail.
Most important therapeutic measures in the treatment of ENT tumors are surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Like radiotherapy with photons, proton therapy is not applied in isolation, but as part of an interdisciplinary therapy plan. Representatives of all relevant specialist disciplines determine this in so-called tumor boards, for each individual patient and the disease individually.
Frequently, radiotherapy with protons from ENT tumors is adjuvant, which means following an operation. For example, if the entire tumor tissue could not be removed during an intervention, the margins of security were very tight or the tumor had already spread to lymph nodes or other organs. In cases where a tumor cannot be operated on for medical or other reasons, radiation is sometimes used in combination with chemotherapy.
Coordinated with your personal environment, chemotherapy can be implemented in your hospital or practice at home as well as at the University Hospital Essen.
For a first quick and individual check of whether proton therapy is suitable for you in princible, we need a summary medical report or alternatively the doctor and surgical reports in English or German as well as up-to-date CT or MRI images.
For the subsequent planning of your therapy, we need additional documents, which we have compiled for you in this list of required documents:
Required Documents
If you have further questions, our Case Management will be happy to help.
Contact our case management
Every patient and every ENT tumour is different. Consequently, we always advise our patients individually. Your way to us is via our Case Management.
This is the interface between you and our medical and therapy team. Following your enquiry or an enquiry of your family or doctor, a personal member of the Case Management team is assigned to you from the beginning of your therapy and provides support with the compilation of the required documentation. When the complete documentation has been submitted, a radio-oncologist examines these.
Case management
The case management of WPE will assist you with questions you may have
Phone: 0201 723 6600