Oropharyngeal cancer recurrence usually has no particularly obvious symptoms. Atypical symptoms include pharyngeal discomfort, voice change, persistent cough and so on.
1. Pharyngeal discomfort: due to the tumor in the oropharynx, it will cause obstruction to the patient’s eating, i.e. foreign body sensation.
2. Voice change: recurrence of oropharyngeal cancer will lead to hoarseness and other changes in voice, in which case drug treatment is not very effective.
3. Stubborn cough: cough that cannot be well controlled even after conventional treatment is also an atypical symptom of oropharyngeal cancer recurrence.
Early symptoms of recurrence of oropharyngeal cancer are usually atypical, which can only be found when patients go to hospital for checkup with symptoms such as blood in sputum. Therefore, it is recommended that patients should have regular checkup after oropharyngeal cancer surgery to prevent the recurrence of oropharyngeal cancer.