Remission From Throat Cancer. Having Fevers, Headaches. What Is Going On?

Posted on Sat, 7 Jul 2012

Question: My husband is in one year remission from throat cancer. He is suffering from fevers for the last seven days and a mild headache on the top of his head. No other symptons. Any idea on what could be going on?

Answered by Dr. Dr. Naveen Kumar Nanjasetty (5 hours later)

Hi

Thanks for the query

Fever in your husband could be due to various reasons such as viral infection, reduced immunity, post chemo-radiotherapy, etc.

The most common reason in this case could be an infection in the throat. An examination of throat can help in making a diagnosis.

The next common cause is reduced immunity in the body following throat cancer. Low body immunity could invite various bacterial infections which need to be confirmed with blood investigations and later controlled with antibiotics.

Finally, if any treatment is done for the throat cancer recently, such as Chemo-radiotherapy, it can cause sickness and fever.

Sometimes, this could be an early sign of spread of malignancy to the distant sites. Hence, I would suggest you to consult your doctor and discuss about this long-standing fever. He will require antibiotics and symptomatic medicine for the treatment of the same.

Hope I have answered your query; I will be available for the follow-up queries.

Regards
Dr. Naveen Kumar N.
ENT and Head & Neck Surgeon

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar