[ Music ]
>> My name is Erin Sarsfield.
I'm a registered nurse, and I'm the clinical coordinator for patients who have head and
neck cancer.
I support all patients who have a head and neck cancer diagnosis through their diagnosis,
treatment, and recovery.
[ Music ]
In working with patients who are diagnosed with HPV related cancers of the head and neck,
one of our big educational focuses is to get adolescents vaccinated against HPV.
It is our hope that in getting these adolescents vaccinated, we can decrease the rates of head
and neck cancers that are related to HPV in the adult population.
However, there are many misconceptions about the HPV vaccine by parents and caretakers.
And one of these is that if an adolescent is vaccinated against HPV, that gives them
the permission to have sexual relations with others.
And this is not the case at all.
The goal is to get adolescents vaccinated between 11 and 14.
They can also be vaccinated earlier at the age of 9 if there's a history of immunosuppression
or even potentially some abuse.
But the goal is to get these adolescents vaccinated prior to their initial sexual experience for
better protection.
There have been many studies that show that the HPV vaccination is generally well tolerated.
There was particular studies that looked at the 10 year incidence of side effects from
the HPV vaccination.
And what they saw is that most patients had minimal reactions, and most of them were local
reactions, such as pain at the injection site or redness around the injection site.
But there were no major side effects that they noted in this study.
As professionals who treat men primarily that have the HPV associated head and neck cancer,
we would like to advocate to vaccinate young boys against HPV related illness, because
primarily the patient population that we are seeing have the oropharyngeal head and neck
cancer related to HPV are more significantly men than women.
[ Music ]
What we are seeing in patients who are diagnosed with HPV related oropharyngeal cancers is
that they actually do very well from treatment.
This is not a cancer that most patients die from.
So, what we end up treating a lot of patients for are the side effects of the treatment,
radiation primarily.
Because the radiation is given to the neck area, there are many changes that occur.
There are changes in saliva.
Their saliva oftentimes becomes very thick.
And so they carry a water bottle around because their mouth is dry and their saliva is very
thick.
There can be problems associated from the radiation in swallowing so that things that
patients could eat prior to receiving radiation to the throat area, they are unable to eat.
For example, breads are very difficult for these people to eat.
And if you think about how many times you eat bread during a day, most people, it's
a big dietary change for these patients.
Also, the radiation can alter their taste so that foods don't taste the same way that
they did prior to treatment.
So, because patients survive and do well after the treatment for these cancers, meaning the
cancer is cured, they're left with dealing with the sequelae of radiation and chemotherapy,
and it can be quite challenging.
Sometimes patients feel depressed because it can be difficult for them to actually go
out and eat at a restaurant because they have problems swallowing, so they have to eat slowly,
or they have to drink a lot of water when they eat.
And so there are a lot of challenges even after the treatment is over that these patients
are left to deal with.
[ Music ]
Some of our patients that have been diagnosed with HPV related cancers still are ashamed
to talk about them.
And we work really hard with them to try to let them know that HPV is something that most
people have.
And just for some reason, their immune system has not been able to fight this off like other
people's has.
And so we want to decrease any stigmas that are associated with this diagnosis and just
work hard toward educating the public about these diseases and about what we see as head
and neck cancer practitioners and try to do our best with encouraging young people to
get the vaccines.
[ Music ]