Patients with head/neck cancers (i.e. tongue and throat cancer) are often treated with radiation and/or chemotherapy and surgery. The treatments may cause mouth/throat pain that makes it difficult for patients to consume enough food to maintain their health. In these cases, nutrition can be delivered via a gastrostomy tube (also called: G-tube, PEG tube or stomach tube). G-tubes may be inserted prior to treatment if it is likely that the treatments will lead to inadequate nutrition. A benefit of this preemptive insertion is that the patient does not have any throat/mouth pain that could be made worse by the insertion process. They are also healthy in terms of their nutritional status and are likely to heal quickly.
G-tubes may be inserted in several ways. Typically, they are inserted via a minimally invasive surgical procedure in which the tube is placed into the stomach via the mouth. A surgeon will then make a small incision in the abdominal wall and stomach and retrieve the tube. The tube is anchored both in the stomach and on the outside of the body. (1) (2)
The video below describes the care and maintenance of G-tubes and contains an interview with a cancer survivor who underwent the procedure.
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