Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has throat cancer. Yesterday he informed shareholders and colleagues of his new diagnosis. “My condition is curable,” he wrote. “The cancer is confined to the original site and the adjacent lymph nodes on the right side of my neck.”He will soon begin treatment including radiation and chemotherapy, he indicated.
Without knowing the specifics of the case, it's impossible to predict an outcome or detail a prognosis. SEER data indicate that the overall survival rate at 5 years for patients with cancer in the mouth and throat is around 67 percent. However, the involvement of lymph nodes may reduce those odds.
Throat cancer generally refers to malignancies of the oropharynx. The disease tends to occur in men over the age of 50. Risk factors include smoking and alcohol use. Some cases are caused by infection with human papilloma virus (HPV). The majority of cases are of squamous cell type.
The American Cancer Society estimates that over 14,400 people will be found to have cancer of the pharynx in the United States this year. Nearly 80 percent of those tumors, approximately 11,550, will be detected in men. The annual number of deaths from throat cancer is just over 2,500.
Staging, by which oncologists assess the extensiveness of a malignancy, is based on the size of the main tumor, the degree and sidedness of lymph node involvement, and the presence or absence of metastases.
Radiation is the mainstay of treatment. Adding chemotherapy to radiation may increase the tumor's responsiveness. Chemotherapy may also serve to kill malignant cells that may have spread to other parts of the body. New, “targeted” therapies and immune treatments are usually not given for this kind of cancer apart from clinical trials.
Symptoms that can suggest the possibility of throat cancer include a persistent sore throat, difficulty or pain on swallowing, or a lump in the back of the mouth, throat or neck. Diagnosis requires examination of the area, usually with an endoscope, and biopsy with careful examination of the specimen by pathologists.
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