Draft for discussion. No build date implied.
About this demo

A proof of concept of the Orlando Health Cancer line on orlandohealth.com and every page it links to, built from our page drafts on the service line, facility and health library templates, with placeholder photos, doctors, locations and articles. It uses no built components and implies no build date. Medical copy is a draft for clinical review.

Every page has one owner. A page another team owns appears here because this line links to it, and changes to it go to that team.

Cancer

Orlando Health cancer specialists screen for, diagnose and treat all types of cancer, including rare ones, and support you through treatment and after it, at hospitals and offices across Central Florida and Tampa Bay.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (40 to 380 characters; ours, 217). The care in the order a person meets it, with the regions the line serves. The landing page's "all types of cancers, even the rarest" is said in the reader's words. No superlative, no count of locations or doctors.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Location · Find an Oncologist. Each care team books its own visits, so the two doors are the place and the specialist. The place leads, as the finder: the cancer line's best-converting paid searches are for a center near the searcher ("breast clinic near me", "cancer center orlando"), and the oncologist is the jump down to the doctor finder (Kim, 2026-10-29: one finder per hero).
RESEARCHCare team cards carry the team's own logo, and no photo yet

Keep the designer's text card and put each team's own lockup (Air Care, Winnie Palmer Hospital, Women's Institute, Orlando Health Children's) in its logo slot. Add a photo band only when every team on the page has a real photo of its own people or place.

  • Eyetracking: people skip decorative and stock images and study images that carry information. Real staff portraits drew 10 percent more viewing time than the bios beside them, though the bios took 316 percent more space; uninformative thumbnails drew about 0.9 fixations each against 4.4 on the text.
  • Card guidance across design systems: images help a reader scan a set of cards when each one is distinct, and hurt when they repeat or say nothing the title does not; text-only cards are a standard variant.
  • Healthcare: every source found points the same way, toward real photos of the actual staff and places over stock, but no rigorous study measures the effect on booking.
  • Measured on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: two of the eight teams have a real photo of their own (the Air Care helicopter, the Children's pavilion); the other six pages use stock tiles. A grid with photos on two cards of eight reads as broken, so the lockup, which every team has, does the recognizing.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

What Cancer Care Covers

Our cancer teams care for adults with cancers of the breast, lung, colon, prostate, skin, blood, brain, pancreas and liver, and rarer cancers such as sarcoma. Children are cared for at Orlando Health Children's.

Treatment may include surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy including proton therapy, or a bone marrow transplant for some blood cancers. Screening and genetic counseling can find cancer early or show your risk.

About this module

Template module · Written block (style guide §11.7: up to five paragraphs, each under 80 words, no lists). Holds the landing page's specialties list, its team paragraph and the screenings page in prose; every cancer and treatment named has a card in the tabs below. Pediatric cancer is Orlando Health Children's (the binding's scope), so it is named once and sent there.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Team Focused on Your Cancer

Specialists in medical, radiation and surgical oncology, pathology and genetics plan your treatment together. Nurses, nutritionists, therapists and counselors trained in cancer care join them, and a nurse navigator helps with appointments, tests and questions from your first visit on.

About this module

Template module · Image and text, photo left (§11.8: heading up to 50 characters, text up to 600). The landing page's own description of the team, in the reader's terms: specialists trained in your cancer, joined by the people who help you live through treatment. Nurse navigation is a section of the Cancer Institute page (G3 ruling); it is named here as what the reader gets.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Care Close to Home, and a Second Look

Cancer care is offered at Orlando Health hospitals and offices across Central Florida and in the Tampa and St. Petersburg area, so many treatments can happen near where you live. If you were diagnosed somewhere else, our specialists can confirm your diagnosis, review your plan of care and help you decide what to do next.

About this module

Template module · Image and text, photo right (§11.8). Two facts from the landing page and the hospital pages that fold here: the institute's expansion into the Tampa and St. Petersburg area so treatment happens nearer home, and its second opinion band. The institute's count of locations is left out because it changes.

More to Know About Cancer Care

Integrative Medicine
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Gentle Therapies for Body and Mind During Treatment

Yoga, qigong, music, art, acupuncture and oncology massage can ease stress, pain and fatigue during treatment and after it. The program is open to Orlando Health patients with cancer, survivors and caregivers.

Learn About Integrative Medicine
Life After Treatment
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Survivorship Care for the Years Ahead

When treatment ends, the survivorship program helps with follow-up visits, continued screening, counseling, education and support groups, for anyone who has completed cancer treatment.

See the Cancer Institute
For Family and Friends
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for the People Who Support You

Cancer touches everyone close to you. Family members and friends are welcome in our support groups, and our guide helps you find the right words for someone who has cancer.

What to Say
Knowing Your Risk
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Genetic Counseling for Families Touched by Cancer

If your parents, siblings or children have had cancer, you may need screening earlier or more often. Genetic counseling looks at your family history and explains what it means for you.

Learn About Genetic Counseling
About this module

Library module · The feature accordion (§11.9: 2 to 5 rows, each a title up to 35 characters, a paragraph up to 350, 0 to 2 buttons, a photo). Rows from sources on disk, each something no other module on this page says. The integrative medicine row is the program page's. The life after treatment row is the survivorship program as the breast cancer center page describes it, which the G3 review ruled a section of the Cancer Institute page. The family row is the support groups page's invitation to anyone concerned about someone with cancer, with the friend guide already drafted. The risk row is the specialty centers index's genetic counseling card.

Prompts for the service line marketer, invented and never to publish as written: a free screening event at a hospital near you · Maggie's story on video · a walk or hike for people in treatment and after it.

Our Cancer Care Teams

Orlando Health Cancer InstituteLocations across Central Florida and Tampa BayOH Cancer Institute

Cancer specialists, nurse navigators and support from diagnosis through survivorship, across Central and West Florida.

Learn More
Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical OncologyLand O' Lakes and ZephyrhillsFlorida Medical Clinic Orlando Health

Cancer care with chemotherapy and infusion for breast, lung, colon and prostate cancers, in Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills.

Learn More
About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the care team records, a card for each team on this line, the team leading (§10.7 rule 5). The card wording is each team's Card blurb, written once on its own page.

What renders on this line: Orlando Health Cancer Institute · Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Only the top-level care teams (the 2026-10-28 review call: "from a service line perspective, there's 2 big brands"; Kim, "that's what it should be"). The institute's centers are its programs, listed in its Specialty Centers module and in this page's Programs set; the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center moved there on that call.

Find an Oncologist

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. The doctor finder, filtered to oncology. Nothing is supplied. It replaces the landing page's Find a Cancer Physician tile, the physicians lists on the hospital cancer pages and Florida Medical Clinic's breast surgeon list.

Find Cancer Care Near You

Map placeholder
Cancer Care Locations
View As List
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Every hospital and office where cancer care is given, each linking to its page, from the records: today the cancer listings of Dr. P. Phillips, Horizon West, Bayfront and Watson Clinic Lakeland Highlands hospitals fold here, with the Cancer Institute's offices and Florida Medical Clinic's oncology offices. Nothing is supplied.

In Their Own Words

"The trial gave me the opportunity to expand my life."

MaggieCancer Institute patientRead More

"Everyone that works there is just fabulous. You couldn't ask for better people."

RowenaCancer Institute patientRead More
About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the story records, two cards (§11.20: a quote up to 140 characters, a name, a short title, Read More). ⭐ Maggie's story renders here and on the Cancer Institute page (oh_clinical_trials_in_the_structure.html §3: the trials page's patient story becomes a Testimonials item on both). Her quote is cut to two of its sentences to fit the card, in her published words. The second card is Rowena's, from the landing page's carousel.

Pediatrics

Children and teens with cancer are cared for by the pediatric cancer and blood disorders team at Orlando Health Children's.

Learn More About Pediatrics
Women's Care

Breast care lives with women's care, and breast and gynecologic cancers are treated with the cancer teams.

Learn More About Women's Care
Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging

Mammograms, CT, MRI and other scans find cancer early, guide biopsies and show how treatment is working.

Learn More About Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging
Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery

Plastic surgeons rebuild the breast, head, neck or skin after cancer surgery, often in the same operation.

Learn More About Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery
General Surgery

General surgeons remove many tumors of the abdomen, pancreas and esophagus, working with the cancer teams.

Learn More About General Surgery
Colon and Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons treat colon, rectal and anal cancers, and colonoscopy finds polyps before they turn to cancer.

Learn More About Colon and Rectal

View All Service Lines

About this module

Template module · The tabs module: Services, Conditions and Treatments. Services holds service lines only (style guide §10.7 rule 30): the six lines cancer care works alongside, each card's sentence saying how, from oh_cancer_related_service_lines.md. Pediatric cancer is the Pediatrics card (Orlando Health Children's); breast care is the Women's card, where the master routes it. Conditions and Treatments fill themselves from the health library, grouped as the binding groups them.

Programs

Gastrointestinal Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Colon, rectal, liver, pancreatic and stomach cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Gastrointestinal Cancer Center
Integrative Medicine ProgramOH Cancer Institute

Yoga, art, music, acupuncture, massage and support groups that ease stress and side effects during and after cancer care.

Learn More About Integrative Medicine Program
Breast Care CenterOH Cancer Institute

Breast cancer specialists, breast imaging and reconstructive surgery in Orlando, Winter Park, Clermont, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Breast Care Center
Rod Taylor Thoracic Care CenterOH Cancer Institute

Lung, esophageal and chest cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

Learn More About Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center
Urologic Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Bladder, kidney, penile and testicular cancer care, with robotic surgery, in Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Urologic Cancer Center
Prostate Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, from active surveillance to robotic surgery and precise radiation.

Learn More About Prostate Cancer Center
Neuro-Oncology CenterOH Cancer Institute

Brain and spinal cord tumor specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips and Ocoee who plan your care together.

Learn More About Neuro-Oncology Center
Gynecologic Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Gynecologic oncologists caring for ovarian, cervical, uterine, vaginal and vulvar cancers in Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancer Center
Head and Neck Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Head and neck cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden, with free screening.

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancer Center
Liver Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Fellowship-trained physicians for primary and secondary liver cancer, including histotripsy, in downtown Orlando.

Learn More About Liver Cancer Center
Endocrine Cancer CenterOH Cancer Institute

Thyroid, adrenal, parathyroid and neuroendocrine cancer specialists in Ocoee, with surgical and nonsurgical care.

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer Center
Leukemia, Lymphoma and MyelomaOH Cancer Institute

Specialists in leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and blood disorders, in downtown Orlando, Ocoee and Lake Mary.

Learn More About Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma
Melanoma and Skin CancerOH Cancer Institute

Dermatology, surgery and oncology specialists for melanoma and skin cancer in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Melanoma and Skin Cancer
SarcomaOH Cancer Institute

Bone and soft tissue cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee who plan your care together.

Learn More About Sarcoma
Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy ProgramOH Cancer Institute

Bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy, with evaluation, treatment and follow-up care in downtown Orlando.

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program

View All Programs

Conditions

Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

Learn More About Lung Cancer
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer starts in the cells of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps you digest food and control...

Learn More About Pancreatic Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at...

Learn More About Proton Therapy
Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes...

Learn More About Mammogram
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy

View All Treatments

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Each care team books its own visits. The Orlando Health Cancer Institute, the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center and Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology each take requests on their own pages.

I was diagnosed somewhere else. Can I get a second opinion?

Yes. Our specialists can confirm your diagnosis, review your plan of care and talk with you about your options. You can request a second opinion on the Cancer Institute's page.

Do I need a referral?

Many people come because their doctor sent them, and some insurance plans ask for a referral. Bring your past test results and imaging to your first visit so your team can start from what has already been done.

When should I be screened for cancer?

It depends on your age, your sex, your family history and other risk factors. Each screening page explains the recommendations, and most insurance plans cover screening that follows them. If a parent, sibling or child has had cancer, tell your doctor.

I'm getting chemotherapy and I have a fever. What should I do?

A fever during chemotherapy can be an emergency. Call your care team's after-hours number right away or go to the nearest emergency room. Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing or bleeding that will not stop.

About this module

Template module · Written copy (§11.16: four or five questions, each up to 85 characters, each answer up to 350). Entry questions about the line as a whole. The screening answer is the screenings page's insurance and family history paragraphs. The fever answer holds the line's emergency seed (a fever during chemotherapy is never a wait-and-see sign).

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can give you access to a new treatment before it is widely available. These are the cancer trials open at Orlando Health now, and Find a Clinical Trial lets you search them by type of cancer.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the Orlando Health trial list and shows only this line's trials, each linking to its own page under /clinical-trials (oh_clinical_trials_in_the_structure.html §2; wizard §0b). No trial and no trial count is typed here: the trials and their count come from the list, so they are kept in one place for clinical accuracy. The copy is the heading and two sentences; what trials are and how they work is said once, on the corporate clinical trials page.

Learn More About Cancer

Before Your Visit

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource
About this module

Template modules · Both fill themselves from the content hub and the resource files, filtered to this line. The institute's content hub page folds here; its articles keep their own addresses (reference/cancer/oh_cancer_source_lists_2026_10_27.md).

OH Cancer Institute

Orlando Health Cancer Institute

Cancer specialists, nurse navigators and support services that care for you from diagnosis through treatment and survivorship, at the Charles Lewis Pavilion downtown and locations across Central and West Florida.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours, 212 characters). The button is Request an Appointment. From the about us page: the team, the main campus and the reach across Central and West Florida. No ranking, no volume.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. The institute books through its own request form and nurse navigators; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

Orlando Health Cancer Institute has cared for people with cancer in Central Florida for more than 40 years. Doctors who specialize in your type of cancer plan your care, with a nurse practitioner, a social worker and a dietitian on your team from the start.

Our main campus is the Charles Lewis Pavilion in downtown Orlando. We also treat patients in Clermont, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary, Ocoee, St. Cloud and St. Petersburg, so you can get care closer to home.

About this module

Template module · Written copy under Who We Are, then the features (Marketer's Playground, §11.9: 3 to 5 rows on a care team). Who We Are is the about us and treatment philosophy pages in plain words. The rows are the institute's own: nurse navigators (care coordination and the nurse navigators page, whose copy also filled this page's written block until 2026-10-28), second opinions (the request page, its form the row's button), survivorship (the breast cancer center page's passage, the only one that describes the program), the support services page, and the virtual tour (the preparing for your first appointment page and the Ocoee location page: "Virtual tours are now available for Orlando Health facilities"). Integrative medicine moved to the Specialty Centers module, where every program of the institute is listed.

What The Cancer Institute Offers

A Nurse Navigator Beside You
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Nurse Navigator Beside You

A nurse navigator who focuses on your type of cancer, such as breast, lung, gastrointestinal or blood cancers, explains your diagnosis and treatment, coordinates your appointments and tests so treatment is not delayed, and connects your family with support.

Second Opinions
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Second Opinions

If you have been diagnosed with cancer, our specialists can review your case, confirm your diagnosis and explain your treatment options, in person or by video visit. We contact you within one to two business days.

Request a Second Opinion
Survivorship and Follow-Up Care
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Survivorship and Follow-Up Care

Your care continues after your last treatment. Our survivorship program is open to anyone who has completed cancer treatment, with follow-up visits, continued screening, counseling, education, support groups and social workers.

Support for You and Your Family
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for You and Your Family

Licensed counselors offer free counseling and lead support groups. Registered dietitians help with meals and side effects, chaplains offer interfaith spiritual care, and rehabilitation therapists help you regain strength. Ask your care team.

Take a Virtual Tour
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Take a Virtual Tour

Explore our lobbies, treatment areas and exam rooms in a 3D tour before your first visit, so you know where you are going when you arrive.

Take the Tour

Our Specialty Centers

Gastrointestinal Cancer Center

Colon, rectal, liver, pancreatic and stomach cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Gastrointestinal Cancer Center
Integrative Medicine Program

Yoga, art, music, acupuncture, massage and support groups that ease stress and side effects during and after cancer care.

Learn More About Integrative Medicine Program
Breast Care Center

Breast cancer specialists, breast imaging and reconstructive surgery in Orlando, Winter Park, Clermont, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Breast Care Center
Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center

Lung, esophageal and chest cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

Learn More About Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center
Urologic Cancer Center

Bladder, kidney, penile and testicular cancer care, with robotic surgery, in Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Urologic Cancer Center
Prostate Cancer Center

Prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, from active surveillance to robotic surgery and precise radiation.

Learn More About Prostate Cancer Center
Neuro-Oncology Center

Brain and spinal cord tumor specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips and Ocoee who plan your care together.

Learn More About Neuro-Oncology Center
Gynecologic Cancer Center

Gynecologic oncologists caring for ovarian, cervical, uterine, vaginal and vulvar cancers in Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancer Center
Head and Neck Cancer Center

Head and neck cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden, with free screening.

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancer Center
Liver Cancer Center

Fellowship-trained physicians for primary and secondary liver cancer, including histotripsy, in downtown Orlando.

Learn More About Liver Cancer Center
Endocrine Cancer Center

Thyroid, adrenal, parathyroid and neuroendocrine cancer specialists in Ocoee, with surgical and nonsurgical care.

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer Center
Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Specialists in leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and blood disorders, in downtown Orlando, Ocoee and Lake Mary.

Learn More About Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma
Melanoma and Skin Cancer

Dermatology, surgery and oncology specialists for melanoma and skin cancer in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More About Melanoma and Skin Cancer
Sarcoma

Bone and soft tissue cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee who plan your care together.

Learn More About Sarcoma
Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program

Bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy, with evaluation, treatment and follow-up care in downtown Orlando.

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program

View All Programs

About this module

Template module, added 2026-10-28 · The institute's specialty centers and programs, called out on its own page (the 2026-10-28 review call with the line's leads: "on the institute page, I think we need to make a better call out of our specialties within that institute... those can all be program pages"). A center inside the institute is a program of it, at /care-teams/cancer-institute/[center]. The drafted programs fill first from their own records (the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center and the Integrative Medicine Program); the cards below are the centers not yet drafted, each sentence from today's specialty centers index (reference/cancer/live/oh/services_cancer_institute_specialty_centers.txt), and each opens the not-yet-built note. Conditions stay in the health library: breast cancer is a condition page, and the Breast Cancer Center is a program that lists its locations. Each name is the center's own, read from the heading or body of its page on orlandohealth.com (reference/cancer/live/oh/services_cancer_institute_specialty_centers_*.txt); where a page names no center, its heading is the name. Left out: pancreatic cancer care, which is part of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center; the Colon and Rectal Institute and the Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute, which are care teams of their own; radiation therapy, proton therapy and genetic counseling, which are treatments; and pediatric cancer care, which is Orlando Health Children's.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group MemberOrlando Health Cancer Institute
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group MemberOrlando Health Cancer Institute
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group MemberOrlando Health Cancer Institute
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Cancer Institute. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page and every specialty center's /our-team page, the St. Petersburg team page and the clinical trials team page.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the institute's location records. It replaces today's /locations page, its eight location pages and every specialty center's /locations page. From the saved bodies: the main campus is the Charles Lewis Pavilion in downtown Orlando, main line (321) 841-1869; outpatient infusion centers in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Ocoee, Lake Mary and St. Cloud; St. Petersburg in the Orlando Health Medical Pavilion at Institute Square, 725 6th Ave. S.

Cancer

The institute's medical, radiation and surgical oncologists care for adults with every kind of cancer.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists study your biopsy and tumor tissue to name the cancer and help choose the treatment.

Learn More About Pathology
Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging

The institute's specialists read your scans with radiologists to stage the cancer and track your treatment.

Learn More About Radiology and Diagnostic Imaging

View All Service Lines

About this module

Template modules · Services holds service lines only (§10.7 rule 30), from oh_cancer_related_service_lines.md; Conditions and Treatments fill themselves from the library pages that name this team. Nothing is supplied. The treatments today's about us and transforming cancer care pages describe (proton therapy, stereotactic body radiation therapy, bone marrow transplant, tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, the robotic Whipple procedure) each have their own library page and reach this page through the Treatments tab.

Conditions

Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for...

Learn More About Appendectomy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan

View All Treatments

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied. Today's billing and insurance assistance link on the patients and families page goes to Patient Financial Resources, which the record links.

Questions People Ask Us

What should I bring to my first appointment?

Bring your completed new patient forms, your insurance card, a photo ID and a list of every medicine you take, with doses and how often, including herbal supplements and over-the-counter medicines. A friend or relative can come with you for support and to help take notes.

How long is a first visit?

Please arrive 30 minutes early. A first consultation usually lasts about two hours: a team member checks your vital signs, then you meet your doctor for an exam and talk about any tests or treatment you need.

Where do I park at the downtown campus?

Parking is free in the visitor garage, C Deck, on Underwood Street, just north of the Cancer Institute's main entrance. Valet parking is available for a fee at the Charles Lewis Pavilion entrance. Every other location has free parking right outside.

Can you help me get to my appointments?

Transportation may be available within 20 miles of our locations. Call (321) 841-7105 to ask.

Who do I call with a question?

Call (321) 841-1869 during regular business hours, or send your care team a message in Orlando Health MyChart. If you have a nurse navigator, you can also email them directly.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's preparing for your first appointment, contact us and campus amenities pages.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Testimonials

"The trial gave me the opportunity to expand my life."

MaggieCancer Institute patientRead More

"Everyone that works there is just fabulous. You couldn't ask for better people."

RowenaCancer Institute patientRead More

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Awards come from the awards record, which holds what today's awards and accreditations page lists; no ranking or designation is typed onto this page. Testimonials: Maggie's story from today's clinical trials page (design §3: on this page and the Cancer line page), and the patient stories on today's about us page. Patient Resources: the appointment, treatment and survivorship guides, the NOURISH recipe collection and the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library. Articles: content hub articles tagged to the institute, where a new study or milestone is published (design §4).

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Clinical Trials at the Cancer Institute

Clinical trials can give you early access to new treatments. Your doctor can tell you whether a trial fits your diagnosis, and Find a Clinical Trial lists every trial open at the Cancer Institute.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to the Cancer Institute's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: "we don't necessarily need individual tiles of feeds. We need just a banner"). No trial and no trial count is typed here. What today's clinical trials page says about trials in general moves to the corporate page; its team goes to Meet Our Doctors and Maggie's story to Testimonials.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Graduate Medical Education at the Cancer Institute

Doctors in training learn here alongside our cancer specialists. Residencies and Fellowships lists the Cancer Institute's programs.

Residencies and Fellowships
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Residencies and Fellowships, narrowed to the Cancer Institute's programs. No program is named here; the list fills itself from the graduate medical education record. The live institute menu lists Residency & Fellowships under Research & Education (read 2026-10-29).

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health

Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology

Medical oncology care for breast, lung, colon, prostate and other cancers, with chemotherapy and infusion close to home, at offices in Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours, 165 characters). The button is Request an Appointment. The cancers are the medical oncology page's solid tumors; the places are its two offices.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. Florida Medical Clinic books its own visits; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The medical oncology team at Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health diagnoses and treats cancer and other diseases, with a focus on precision medicine. Our board-certified medical oncologist sees patients in Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills. Meet the team below.

We care for people with solid tumors, including breast, lung, colon and prostate cancers. Your oncologist builds a plan for you that brings together prevention, early detection and care from several specialists, and we stay beside you at each step.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from FMC's medical oncology page and Dr. Reza's pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): chemotherapy and infusion, palliative care through the FMC network and prompt consultations, each stated on FMC's pages. Clinical studies are the Clinical Trials section's.

What This Practice Offers

Chemotherapy and Infusion
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Chemotherapy and Infusion

Your oncologist chooses your chemotherapy by your type of cancer, your tumor's makeup and how you have responded before. Our infusion nurses give your treatment, and your record is open to all of your Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health doctors.

Palliative Care and Pain Relief
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Palliative Care and Pain Relief

We work with doctors across the Florida Medical Clinic network to offer palliative care, including pain management, so you can feel as well as possible during treatment.

Prompt Consultations
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Prompt Consultations

New patients can be scheduled promptly for a treatment consultation. Call (813) 780-2642 to book.

Meet the Team

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group MemberFlorida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group MemberFlorida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group MemberFlorida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to FMC's medical oncology department. Nothing is supplied. FMC's saved pages name one physician, Samina Reza, MD. Whether each doctor is accepting new patients shows on the doctor's own card from the doctor records, never in copy.

Our Offices

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from FMC's office records: Land O' Lakes, 2100 Via Bella Blvd, Suite 207, North Entrance, Land O' Lakes, FL 34639; Zephyrhills, 36763 Eiland Blvd, Suite 202, Zephyrhills, FL 33542 (the building is shared with Palliative Care). Phone (813) 780-2642, fax (813) 355-5053.

Cancer

Florida Medical Clinic's oncologists bring chemotherapy, infusion and cancer care to Pasco County.

Learn More About Cancer

View All Service Lines

About this module

Template modules · Services holds service lines only (§10.7 rule 30), from oh_cancer_related_service_lines.md. Conditions and Treatments fill themselves from the library pages that name this team. Nothing is supplied.

Conditions

Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and...

Learn More About Cardiotoxicity

View All Conditions

Treatments

Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

Learn More About Colorectal Surgery
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan

View All Treatments

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself; FMC's page filters doctors by insurance today. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (813) 780-2642 to schedule a treatment consultation.

What cancers do you treat?

We care for people with solid tumors, including breast, lung, colon and prostate cancers. We treat all forms of colon and lung cancer, from adenocarcinoma to small cell and squamous cell lung cancer.

How is my chemotherapy chosen?

Your oncologist looks at your type of cancer, the makeup of your tumor and how you have responded to any earlier chemotherapy, then explains the plan and what to expect.

Will my other doctors know about my treatment?

Yes. Your chemotherapy record can be seen by all of your Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health doctors, so your care stays connected.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from FMC's medical oncology, chemotherapy, colon cancer and lung cancer treatment pages.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Clinical Studies

We take part in clinical studies for people treated by our medical oncologists. Ask your oncologist whether one fits you.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the Orlando Health trial list and shows only this team's studies, each linking to its own page under /clinical-trials, with their count from the list (oh_clinical_trials_in_the_structure.html §2). No study and no count is typed here. FMC's page says the department conducts clinical studies for medical oncology patients.

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Gastrointestinal Cancer Center

Medical, surgical and radiation oncologists who plan your care together for cancers of the colon, rectum, liver, pancreas and stomach, in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours, 190 characters). The button is Request an Appointment. The cancers are the treatments page's; the places are the locations page's. No superlative, no "nationally recognized" without a source on disk.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. The center, a program of the institute since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Gastrointestinal Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Medical, surgical and radiation oncologists work together to plan your treatment around your diagnosis, the stage of your cancer and your own preferences, so you can keep the best quality of life you can during treatment.

We care for cancers of the colon and rectum, the liver and bile ducts, the pancreas, and the stomach, including cancer where the stomach meets the esophagus. A support team stays with you through every step of treatment and recovery.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatments pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): surgery through small incisions, care when cancer has spread, the GI nurse navigators and the support around treatment, each stated on today's pages. The robotic colorectal training claim is the treatments page's, without its trademark.

What This Center Offers

Surgery Through Small Incisions
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery Through Small Incisions

Our surgeons operate through small incisions when they can, some with robotic help, which can mean a shorter recovery. They use robotic help for the Whipple procedure for pancreatic cancer, and surgeons from across the country train here in robotic colon and rectal surgery.

When Cancer Has Spread
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

When Cancer Has Spread

When cancer has spread within the abdomen, some people can have HIPEC: surgery to remove the visible tumor, then heated chemotherapy placed in the abdomen. When it has spread to the liver, our team has treatments that remove or destroy the tumors there.

A Navigator for GI Cancers
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Navigator for GI Cancers

A nurse navigator who focuses on gastrointestinal cancers coordinates your appointments and tests, explains each step and connects you and your family with support, from your first visit through treatment.

Support for the Whole Person
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for the Whole Person

Integrative medicine, registered dietitians, free counseling and the MCRG Patient and Family Learning Center are open to you and your family while you are treated with us.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations pages of this center and the pancreatic cancer center. From the saved bodies, one phone, (321) 841-1838, at 1400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32806 (the only place the pancreatic cancer page lists); 7472 Docs Grove Cir., Orlando, FL 32819 (Dr. Phillips); 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746; and 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team pages of this center and the pancreatic cancer center.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1838 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

Will I need surgery?

Not always. Your team recommends the combination of treatments that fits you best, which may include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy or other therapies, based on your diagnosis, the stage of your cancer and your preferences.

Can I take part in a clinical trial?

When it fits your diagnosis, your doctor may offer you a clinical trial of a promising new medicine or treatment. Find a Clinical Trial, further down this page, lists the trials open here.

What support is there for my family?

Your family can use the integrative medicine program, counseling and support groups, and the MCRG Patient and Family Learning Center, which lends books and videos about cancer and its treatment.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments and resources pages and the institute's request an appointment page.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Gastrointestinal Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer you a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's resources page names the MCRG Patient and Family Learning Center and the institute's genetic counseling, nutrition, oncology massage and counseling services, each reached from its own record.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-27.

Cancer

The center's specialists plan care for cancers of the stomach, pancreas, liver and other digestive organs.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Digestive specialists find many of these cancers with endoscopy and help manage eating and digestion during treatment.

Learn More About Digestive Health
General Surgery

Surgeons remove digestive tumors, often robotically, as part of the plan the center makes with you.

Learn More About General Surgery

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer
Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

Learn More About Gallbladder Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Integrative Medicine Program

Classes, support groups and hands-on therapies that ease stress, pain and fatigue during cancer treatment and after it, for Orlando Health patients with cancer, survivors and the people who care for them.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy (40 to 380 characters; ours, 204). Who it is for and what it eases, from the program page's own words: physical, emotional and social health, for patients, survivors and caregivers.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request Information. A program a patient joins alongside treatment; one action, its own request form.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Care for the Whole Person

The Integrative Medicine Program at the Orlando Health Cancer Institute helps your physical, emotional and social health, so you can keep the best quality of life possible through treatment and into survivorship. Everything it offers works alongside the care your doctors give you.

The program is open to any Orlando Health patient with cancer, to survivors and to caregivers. You can try whatever appeals to you, whether you are in the hospital, visiting our clinics or joining from home by phone or video.

About this module

Template module · Written block (§11.7). The program page's goal and its open door, said once. "Complements" is the program's own framing: these services go alongside medical treatment and never replace it.

What You Can Try

Movement and breath. Yoga, gentle yoga, laughter yoga and qigong, which combines movement, breath and thought to ease stress, help you sleep and relieve pain. No experience is needed, and the movements can be adapted to your ability, even if you need a chair.

Art and music. Arts in Medicine workshops in creative writing, painting and photography, an open art studio, a jewelry class, a writing group, and music and relaxation classes that help calm the body and mind. Patients can also make art while they receive infusion treatment.

Massage, acupuncture and healing touch. Licensed massage therapists trained in oncology massage, lymphatic drainage and scar tissue release help with pain, fatigue and anxiety. Acupuncture, including ear acupuncture, tui na and gua sha, and healing touch care for mind and body together. Acupuncture and massage are paid services that insurance does not usually cover.

Support groups. A weekly cancer support group, led by licensed mental health professionals, is open to anyone newly diagnosed, in remission, facing a recurrence, making a treatment decision or worried about someone with cancer. Most meetings are by phone.

About this module

Template module · The program template's written sections with bold lead-ins (§11.7: up to five paragraphs, each under 80 words). Every service is named on the program page or its Groups and Massage Services pages; the descriptions are theirs, shortened. Acupuncture and oncology massage are marked as paid services, as the program page marks them. Named as a written block so it holds its place under either template order the builder reads.

More About the Program

Walk the Labyrinth
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Walking Meditation on the Fourth Floor Terrace

On the fourth floor terrace of the Charles Lewis Pavilion, a labyrinth modeled on the one at Chartres Cathedral offers a walking meditation and a quiet place to breathe. It is open on weekdays to patients, families, team members and neighbors.

Oncology Massage
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Gentle Touch for the Side Effects of Treatment

Massage can ease pain, fatigue and anxiety and help with the side effects of chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and lymphedema, for patients in treatment, survivors and family members. It is offered in downtown Orlando and in Ocoee. Button: Request Information → #request

A New Calendar Every Month
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Classes in Person, by Phone and Online

Classes, groups and workshops change each month, and the calendar marks each one as in person, by phone or online. Ask for it by email or pick one up at the program's classroom. Button: Request Information → #request

About this module

Library module · The feature accordion (§11.9: 2 to 5 rows, each a title up to 35 characters, a paragraph up to 350, 0 to 2 buttons, a photo). The labyrinth row is the program page's; its hours are left to the record. The massage row is the Massage Services page's, its places from that page's location list. The calendar row is the Groups page's. Prompts for the marketer, invented and never to publish as written: an Arts in Medicine showcase of patients' work · a short gentle yoga video with one of the instructors · a caregiver's story about the support group.

Where to Find Us

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the program's location records: the program's classroom and office at 1720 S. Orange Ave., third floor, Orlando; and the massage locations at 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, and 83 W. Miller St., Orlando (the Massage Services page). Nothing else is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

Who can take part?

Any Orlando Health patient with cancer, anyone who has finished cancer treatment, and the family members and friends who care for them.

Does it cost anything?

Classes and support groups are offered as part of your care. Acupuncture and oncology massage are paid services that insurance does not usually cover, and the program team can tell you the current price before you book.

Can I join from home?

Yes. Most support groups meet by phone, so you simply dial in, and some meet by secure video. The monthly calendar shows how each class and group is offered.

How do I sign up?

Call (321) 841-5056 or email IntegrativeMedicine@OrlandoHealth.com for this month's calendar. To receive the newsletter, complete the program's sign-up form. To book acupuncture, call (321) 841-8393.

About this module

Template module · Written copy (§11.16: four or five questions, each up to 85 characters, each answer up to 350). The phone numbers and email are the program page's.

Cancer

The program works alongside your cancer treatment and stays open to you as a survivor.

Learn More About Cancer
Behavioral Health

Licensed counselors lead the support groups, and relaxation and music classes help with stress and worry.

Learn More About Behavioral Health
Pain Management

Acupuncture, oncology massage and qigong can help ease pain alongside the care your doctors give.

Learn More About Pain Management
Advanced Rehabilitation

Gentle yoga and oncology massage help you rebuild strength and manage lymphedema during and after treatment.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

Learn More About Lymphedema Therapy

View All Treatments

Ready to Learn More?

Request information and the program team will contact you.

Request Information
OH Cancer Institute

Breast Care Center

Oncologists, breast imaging specialists, pathologists and reconstructive surgeons who plan your care together, from your diagnosis through recovery, in downtown Orlando, Winter Park, Clermont, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Dr. Phillips.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team is the center page's own list (oncologists, imaging, pathologists, reconstructive surgeons); the places are the locations page's. No superlative: the page's "world-class", "pioneers" and its survival figure stay out.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Breast Care Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Medical, surgical and radiation oncologists, a specialized breast imaging team, pathologists, reconstructive plastic surgeons and rehabilitation specialists work together to build a treatment plan around your type of cancer, your lifestyle and your goals. Our center has been accredited by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers since 2013.

We care for every form of breast cancer, including ductal and lobular cancers, triple negative and inflammatory breast cancer, cancer that has spread, cancer that has come back, and breast cancer in men. A nurse navigator guides you through each phase of care, so you always know what comes next.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatments pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): imaging and biopsy, surgery and reconstruction (with the wire-free lumpectomy from the SCOUT page, named without its trademark), treatment planned together, the breast health and risk review (the prevention pages' service, said once; screening and risk guidance stays in the library), and support through survivorship. The center's accreditation by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Care Centers since 2013 is stated on the center page. The page also states an ACR Breast Imaging Center of Excellence designation, the Cancer Center of Excellence designation ("one of only seven in the state and the only one in Central Florida", a ranking claim, so it stays in this note and out of the copy), "more than 35 years" of breast care and "more than 15 years" of multidisciplinary care (a duration the institute page's own "more than 40 years" does not contradict; left out of the copy), and a 99 percent five-year survival figure for early-stage breast cancer (a claim a library page would source; left out). The page also describes the first-visit steps; they appear in the FAQ.

What This Center Offers

Imaging and Biopsy in One Place
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Imaging and Biopsy in One Place

Our breast imaging team uses mammograms, ultrasound and MRI to find answers quickly. When a biopsy is needed, it is guided by imaging for accuracy, and the lab results help your team plan your treatment.

Surgery and Reconstruction
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery and Reconstruction

Your surgeon talks with you about a lumpectomy or a mastectomy and a sentinel node biopsy to check your lymph nodes. A small reflector instead of a wire can mark the tumor, so you are free to move until surgery. If you want reconstruction, now or later, our plastic surgeons join your team from the start.

A Treatment Plan Made by a Team
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Treatment Plan Made by a Team

Your plan may combine surgery, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy and radiation, including shorter courses of radiation, MRI-guided radiation and proton therapy for some patients. Our tumor board, a group of cancer specialists, can review more complex cases together.

Breast Health and Risk Review
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Breast Health and Risk Review

If you have a strong family history or other risk factors, our specialists and genetic counselors can review your risk with you and talk through genetic testing, more frequent screening and other steps you can take.

Support Through Recovery and Beyond
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support Through Recovery and Beyond

Nurse navigators, lymphedema therapy, nutrition guidance, counseling and support groups are open to you and your family. Our Express Symptom Management program and virtual visits help with urgent needs, and our survivorship program continues your care after treatment ends.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations pages of this center and of its prevention information page. The saved bodies list these offices, mostly at (321) 841-1869: Orlando Health Cancer Institute Breast Care Center, 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761; Lake Mary, 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746; Downtown Orlando, 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806; Breast Care and Gynecologic Cancer Center, 83 W. Miller St., Orlando, FL 32806; Breast Care Center, 7472 Docs Grove Cir., Orlando, FL 32819 (Dr. Phillips, (321) 843-8370, and the Cancer Institute office at the same address, (321) 842-7946); Breast Care Center, 1111 W. Fairbanks Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789 ((321) 842-5052); Breast Care and Gynecologic Cancer Center, 1900 Don Wickham Dr., Clermont, FL 34711.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Breast Care Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page of this center.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied. The prevention page says screening mammograms are covered by insurance; that belongs to the screening page in the library.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our care team schedules your visit, explains your next steps, helps coordinate your imaging and gathers your medical records. Visits can be in person or by video.

What happens at my first visit?

You review your diagnosis in detail with your doctor, including your imaging, medical history and biopsy results if you have them. You talk through your next steps, and your doctor encourages you to ask any questions you have.

Will I need chemotherapy?

Not always. Treatment plans differ from one person to the next, based on the type and stage of the cancer and your own characteristics. Your team may suggest more tests, such as imaging, a biopsy or genetic testing, before it recommends a plan, and our tumor board can review more complex cases.

Can I have reconstruction, and when?

Reconstruction is a personal decision, and it can follow many paths. Some people choose it right after cancer surgery and others wait months or years. If you want it, our reconstructive surgeons join your team from the start.

I do not have cancer, but my risk is higher. Can the center help?

Yes. Our breast specialists and genetic counselors can review your family history and risk factors with you and talk through genetic testing, more frequent screening and other steps. You can also talk with your primary care doctor or OB-GYN about your risk.

What happens after treatment ends?

Your care continues. Our survivorship program is open to anyone who has completed cancer treatment, with follow-up visits, continued screening, counseling, education and support groups.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments, prevention and SCOUT pages and the institute's request an appointment page. The center page's own questions are about symptoms, lumps and diagnosis and go to the breast cancer condition page in the library; the six below are the ones a center's patients ask. Phone: (321) 841-1869 is the number the center page's locations list gives for most offices and the institute's main line.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Breast Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new diagnostic tool, medicine or treatment for breast cancer. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page and the prevention page's go to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. The center's pages state the NAPBC accreditation since 2013, an ACR Breast Imaging Center of Excellence designation and a Cancer Center of Excellence designation for the institute (see module 2's note), and show two patient stories (one patient is quoted by first name on the center page). Today's resources page names no resource beyond the institute's integrative and complementary services; the center page names oncology nurse navigators, physical and lymphedema therapy, nutritional guidance, genetic counseling, psychological counseling, support groups, the free guide to breast cancer and the breast self-exam guides (one for men), each reached from its own record. The center page also names the Orlando Health Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute as the team's partner for reconstruction.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's surgeons, oncologists and radiation specialists plan breast cancer care together, from diagnosis on.

Learn More About Cancer
Women's

A breast exam or mammogram with a women's health provider is often what leads you to this center.

Learn More About Women's
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons rebuild the breast after a mastectomy, sometimes in the same operation as the cancer surgery.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Radiology

Radiologists read the mammograms, ultrasounds and MRIs that find breast cancer and guide its biopsy.

Learn More About Radiology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average...

Learn More About Breast Cancer Screening
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

Learn More About Breast Reconstruction
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center

Thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists, pulmonologists and gastroenterologists who plan your care together for cancers of the lung, esophagus and chest, in downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The cancers are the center's own pages'; the places are the locations page's. No superlative: the live page's "pioneers," "first in Florida," "epicenter" and "latest" wording is left out of the copy, and the percentage of surgeries done through small incisions is left out because the live pages state two different figures (see the Overview ABOUT note).

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists, pulmonologists, gastroenterologists and other specialists work together with you and your family to plan your care around your diagnosis and your own needs.

We care for cancers of the lung and the esophagus, tumors of the chest wall and the space between the lungs, and lung nodules that need a closer look. We also treat noncancerous conditions such as acid reflux (GERD), and excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis). Nutrition support, education and integrative medicine are part of your care, so you can keep a good quality of life during treatment and beyond.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center page and its treatments page, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): surgery through small incisions, lung nodule care, lung cancer early detection (both are services of this center, and the card for each links to its library page), esophageal and reflux care, and support for the whole person, each stated on today's pages. The center's scope, from its treatments page: esophageal cancer, non-small cell and small cell lung cancer, lung nodules, mediastinal tumors, chest wall tumors, and noncancerous conditions such as GERD (also hiatal hernia, achalasia and esophageal diverticulum, which the robotic esophageal surgery section lists). The live center page also lists hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) as a service, so the copy names it; it is a condition page in the library. The robotic bronchoscopy detail (the live page's Ion platform, its case count and its "first in Florida" claim) belongs to the navigational bronchoscopy treatment page and is not repeated here. Facts the live pages state with a source and that stay out of the copy under the standing bars: "first in Florida" for robotic bronchoscopy, "first in Central Florida" for proton therapy, a recognized da Vinci epicenter for thoracic robotic surgery, the region's first robotic thoracic surgery in 2007, and the first LINX procedure in Central Florida in 2016.

What This Center Offers

Surgery Through Small Incisions
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery Through Small Incisions

Our thoracic surgeons operate through a few small incisions, many with robotic help, for cancers of the lung, esophagus and chest. Smaller incisions can mean less pain, a shorter hospital stay and a quicker recovery.

Lung Nodule Care
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Lung Nodule Care

Most lung nodules are not cancer. We diagnose, monitor and treat them in one place, with a follow-up plan built around the size and look of your nodule and biopsy options that include robotic bronchoscopy, which reaches small nodules at the edges of the lung.

Early Detection for Lung Cancer
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Early Detection for Lung Cancer

A low-dose CT scan once a year can find lung cancer before it causes symptoms. We screen people at higher risk, and if the scan shows a spot, our lung nodule team plans the follow-up with you.

Esophageal and Reflux Care
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Esophageal and Reflux Care

Our surgeons treat cancer of the esophagus and conditions that are not cancer, such as GERD, hiatal hernia and achalasia, with minimally invasive tests and surgery. If medicine no longer controls your reflux, a device placed through a few small incisions is one option.

Support for the Whole Person
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for the Whole Person

Integrative medicine, registered dietitians, genetic counseling, counseling and support groups, and a patient and family learning center are open to you and your family while you are treated with us.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. From the saved body, seven places: the Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center at 1001 E. Osceola Pkwy., Kissimmee, FL 34744, (407) 648-5384; at 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761, (407) 648-5384; at 22 W. Underwood St., 4th Floor, Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-1869; at 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746, (407) 648-5384; Orlando Health Cancer Institute - Downtown Orlando, 22 W. Underwood St., Orlando, FL 32806, (407) 648-5384; Orlando Health Cancer Institute - Horizon West, 17000 Porter Rd., Winter Garden, FL 34787, (321) 841-1869; and Orlando Health Cancer Institute - Orange City, 2565 Enterprise Rd., Orange City, FL 32763, (321) 843-2100. The early detection page's own locations page lists the imaging sites where the low-dose CT scan is done: Orlando Health Imaging Centers at Altamonte Springs (398 E. Altamonte Dr., 32701), Lake Mary (392 Rinehart Rd., Suite 1040, 32746), South Orange (1800 S. Orange Ave., Orlando, 32806), Summerport (5151 Winter Garden Vineland Rd., Suite 104, Windermere, 34786), Spring Lake (7243 Della Dr., 1st Floor, Suite C, Orlando, 32819) and Ocoee (10889 W. Colonial Dr., 34761), all (407) 331-9355, and Orlando Health South Lake Hospital Outpatient Imaging (1900 Don Wickham Dr., Clermont, 34711, (407) 635-3023). The doctor profiles on the our team page also list the center's doctors at Clermont, St. Cloud and St. Petersburg.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, whose filters cover thoracic surgery, lung and esophageal oncology, radiation oncology and interventional pulmonology.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied. The live early detection page states a self-pay price for a lung cancer screening scan for people without insurance; a price is not typed on this page, and it belongs with the screening library page, where it can be checked at scheduling.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (407) 648-5384 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

Will I need surgery?

Not always. Your team recommends the combination of treatments that fits you, which may include surgery, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation therapy or other therapies, based on your diagnosis, the stage of your cancer and your preferences. When surgery is the right choice, our surgeons use small incisions whenever they can.

A scan found a spot on my lung. Does that mean cancer?

Most lung nodules are not cancer. They are often caused by inflammation, an infection or scar tissue from an earlier infection. Our specialists set up a follow-up plan based on the size and look of your nodule, which may be repeat CT scans and visits, or a biopsy if the nodule looks concerning. A nurse navigator helps you find resources and coordinates your follow-up visits.

Do you offer lung cancer screening?

Yes. A low-dose CT scan once a year is how lung cancer is screened for in people at higher risk. After you fill out a short questionnaire, we can determine your risk and schedule your scan. Our Lung Cancer Screening page explains who qualifies and what to expect.

Can I get a second opinion?

Yes. If you have a lung nodule or a lung cancer diagnosis and want a second opinion, call (321) 842-9429. Our team reviews your case with you, and you can request a full evaluation and a personalized treatment plan with a pulmonologist or surgeon.

What support is there for my family?

Your family can use the integrative medicine program, counseling and support groups, and the patient and family learning center, which lends books and videos about cancer and its treatment. Registered dietitians and your nurse navigator are part of your care from the start.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments, lung nodules, minimally invasive lung cancer detection and early detection pages, and the institute's request an appointment page. The screening answer points to the library page for who qualifies, so no eligibility rule is typed here. The appointment line is the thoracic offices' number on the locations page. The second opinion line is the number the live robotic bronchoscopy page gives for lung nodule questions and second opinions.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Thoracic Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. The live center clinical trials page lists lung and esophageal trials and its match count; none appears on this page.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. The live pages state: a Screening Center of Excellence designation from the Lung Cancer Alliance (the GO2 for Lung Cancer program) for the downtown Orlando clinic's low-dose CT screening, which fills from the awards record once it is sourced; patient stories (one trial patient, one cancer institute patient), which fill from the testimonials record; and the resources the support card names, each reached from its own record: the Integrative Medicine program, Genetic Counseling, the nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, Oncology Massage Therapy, Patient and Family Counseling, and a patient and family learning center. The live center page also names the patient portal and the virtual visit option, both institute services.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's thoracic surgeons and oncologists treat lung, esophageal and other chest cancers as one team.

Learn More About Cancer
Radiology

Low-dose CT finds lung cancer early, and radiologists track the lung nodules the center follows.

Learn More About Radiology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and...

Learn More About Cardiotoxicity

View All Conditions

Treatments

Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Urologic Cancer Center

Urologists, surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists who plan your care together for cancers of the bladder, kidney, prostate and male reproductive system, with robotic surgery and precise radiation, across Central Florida.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The cancers are the treatments page's; the places are the locations page's. No superlative, no "nationally recognized" claim.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Urologic Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Urology physicians, surgeons, oncologists and radiation oncologists work from one treatment plan, built around your diagnosis and with your input, so you do not have to book separate visits with each specialist and facility. Our aim is to treat your cancer effectively and to protect how you live afterward.

We care for cancers of the bladder and kidney, penile and testicular cancer, and the tumors that come with Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome. We also care for prostate cancer, which has its own center, the Prostate Cancer Center. Treatment can include minimally invasive surgery, targeted radiation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. When it helps, treatment also includes reconstructive surgery and hormone therapy to restore urinary and sexual function.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center page and its treatments page, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows), each stated on today's pages: surgery through small incisions (da Vinci robotic, laparoscopic and ureteroscopic procedures), precise radiation (targeted radiation, SBRT, proton therapy), treatment that protects function (urologic prosthetic surgery, reconstructive surgery, hormone therapy for sexual and urinary function, bladder reconstruction), one coordinated plan, and genetic counseling (today's page links the Cancer Genetics and High Risk Care Center). The "Epicenter for Urologic Robotic Surgery" name and "leading experts" on today's page are self-descriptions and stay out of the copy. Today's page also links a self-check guide for testicular health; it belongs to the library and is not repeated here.

What This Center Offers

Surgery Through Small Incisions
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery Through Small Incisions

Our surgeons are skilled in da Vinci robotic surgery and in laparoscopic and ureteroscopic procedures. When surgery is needed, smaller incisions can mean less pain and a shorter recovery.

Radiation Aimed With Precision
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Radiation Aimed With Precision

Targeted radiation treats the tumor while limiting the effect on nearby organs. Your radiation oncologist explains which form of radiation fits your cancer and where it is.

Treatment That Protects Function
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Treatment That Protects Function

Our team plans around how you want to live afterward. That can include bladder-sparing treatment, bladder reconstruction after bladder removal, urologic prosthetic surgery and, for some patients, hormone replacement to restore sexual and urinary function.

One Plan, One Team
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

One Plan, One Team

Urologists, surgeons and oncologists agree on a single plan with you, so you do not have to relay records and questions between offices.

Genetic Counseling for Your Family
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Genetic Counseling for Your Family

Some urologic cancers run in families. Our genetic counselors help you learn your risk for a hereditary form of cancer and what testing can tell you and your relatives.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. From the saved body, six listings: 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761, (321) 842-6910; 303 E. Par St., Orlando, FL 32804, (877) 876-3627 (listed as the Urologic Cancer Center); 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746, (321) 842-6910; 1400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-1869; 7472 Docs Grove Cir., Orlando, FL 32819, (321) 842-6910; and the Orlando Health Urologic Cancer Center at 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-3776.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Urologic Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, which is a doctor-finder listing of urologists, advanced practice providers, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-3776 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to confirm your visit, in person or by video. You are welcome to come for a second opinion too.

Will I need surgery?

Not always. Treatment depends on the type of cancer, its stage and where it is. Your team may recommend surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, immunotherapy or a combination, and some early prostate cancers are watched with active surveillance. When surgery is the choice, we offer minimally invasive options along with traditional ones.

Will treatment affect my bladder, kidneys or sexual function?

Our team plans with that in mind from the start. We aim to protect as much function as we can, and when treatment does affect it, we offer reconstructive surgery, urologic prosthetic surgery and, for some patients, hormone replacement to help restore it.

Can I take part in a clinical trial?

When it fits your diagnosis, your doctor may offer you a clinical trial of a promising new medicine or treatment. Find a Clinical Trial, further down this page, lists the trials open here.

What support is there for my family and me?

Integrative medicine, registered dietitians, genetic counseling, counseling and support groups are open to you and your family while you are treated with us. A nurse navigator can walk you through your care when your case is complex.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments, resources and clinical trials pages and the institute's request an appointment page. The phone number is the Urologic Cancer Center's own listing.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Urologic Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's resources page names the Integrative Medicine program, genetic counseling, the nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy and patient and family counseling, each reached from its own record. It also names the MCRG Patient and Family Learning Center in words written for gastrointestinal patients, so the center's page omits it from the FAQ. Today's awards and accreditations page for this center names no award. Its body describes MRI-guided radiation therapy at one hospital location and states that the institute is one of four Florida facilities offering it, with the source not shown; that claim stays out of the copy and the page's content belongs to the advanced radiation therapy program.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's urologic oncologists treat bladder, kidney, testicular and penile cancers.

Learn More About Cancer
Urology

Urologists often find these cancers first, through blood in the urine, a scan or an exam.

Learn More About Urology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Prostate Cancer Center

A team that focuses on prostate cancer: a fellowship-trained surgeon, urologists, radiation and medical oncologists, dietitians, rehabilitation specialists and oncology nurse navigators, who work together from your first test through treatment.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The diagnosis and treatment names are the treatment page's; the places are the locations page's. No superlative, no "world leaders" or "most advanced" claim from today's page.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Prostate Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Our specialists use precise imaging and biopsy to find prostate cancer and choose treatment with you. Many prostate cancers grow slowly, and some people begin with active surveillance. When treatment is the right step, your team plans a path that protects how you live.

We care for every type of prostate cancer, from the most common to the rare. If you have bladder, kidney or another urologic cancer, the Urologic Cancer Center cares for you.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatment pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows), each stated on today's pages: diagnosis (3T MRI, MRI-fusion biopsy, transrectal ultrasound, PSMA PET), treatment that begins with active surveillance for slow-growing cancer, focal and minimally invasive options (HIFU, cryoablation, water vapor ablation, robotic surgery), precise radiation (SBRT in five sessions over about two weeks, proton therapy, rectal spacers), and medicines (hormone therapy, immunotherapy, targeted drug therapy, Pluvicto, chemotherapy). Today's pages call the physicians "leading experts" and "world leaders" in robotic surgery and SBRT "the quickest radiation therapy option"; these are self-descriptions and stay out of the copy. Today's page states that prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men after lung cancer; that statistic belongs to the library and stays out of center copy.

What This Center Offers

Imaging That Guides the Biopsy
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Imaging That Guides the Biopsy

A 3T MRI can show whether a biopsy is needed, and an MRI-fusion biopsy uses that image to target the suspicious area of the prostate in real time. A PSMA PET scan looks for cancer that may have spread.

Treatment That Starts With You
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Treatment That Starts With You

For early, slow-growing cancer, active surveillance may be the right first step. When treatment is needed, your options include robotic surgery, focal therapy such as high-intensity focused ultrasound, cryoablation and water vapor ablation, and medicines such as hormone therapy and immunotherapy.

Precise Radiation Treatment
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Precise Radiation Treatment

Stereotactic body radiation therapy delivers radiation in five sessions over about two weeks. Proton therapy is another option. A gel spacer placed between the prostate and the rectum helps protect the rectum from radiation.

Care for Advanced Prostate Cancer
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Care for Advanced Prostate Cancer

If prostate cancer has spread, options include chemotherapy and targeted drug therapy. If it has stopped responding to hormone therapy and chemotherapy, Pluvicto, a targeted radioactive treatment, finds cancer cells by a marker on their surface and sends radiation to them while largely sparing nearby healthy cells.

Genetic Testing for Your Family
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Genetic Testing for Your Family

Testing can tell your team more about your cancer and how to treat it, and may show whether your relatives have a higher risk of the disease.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. From the saved body, two listings: the Orlando Health Urologic Cancer Center at 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-3776; and Orlando Health Medical Group Urology - Clermont at 865 Oakley Seaver Dr., Clermont, FL 34711, (877) 876-3627.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Prostate Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, which is a doctor-finder listing of urologists, advanced practice providers, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-3776 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to confirm your visit. If you have already been diagnosed, you are welcome to come for a second opinion with one of our prostate cancer specialists.

Do I need treatment right away?

Not always. Many prostate cancers grow slowly. If yours was found early and is growing slowly, your team may suggest active surveillance, which means close monitoring with treatment when it is needed. Your team looks at your stage, how fast the cancer is growing and your preferences.

How long does radiation treatment take?

It depends on the type. Stereotactic body radiation therapy is given in five sessions over about two weeks, with a few planning visits beforehand. Your radiation oncologist explains which option fits your age, health, prostate size and stage of disease.

What is a rectal spacer?

It is a gel your doctor places between the prostate and the rectum with a small needle before radiation. One kind is made mostly from water; another can be shaped to fit you, and your doctor chooses which fits. It moves the rectum farther from the radiation, then your body absorbs it over time and you do not need a second procedure to remove it. The visit is usually a short outpatient appointment.

Can I take part in a clinical trial?

When it fits your diagnosis, your doctor may offer you a clinical trial of a promising new medicine or treatment. Find a Clinical Trial, further down this page, lists the trials open here.

What support is there for my family and me?

Integrative medicine, registered dietitians, genetic counseling, counseling and support groups are open to you and your family while you are treated with us. Our oncology nurse navigators help you find your way through each step.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatment and resources pages and the urologic center's radiation and rectal spacer pages. The phone number is the Urologic Cancer Center office listing on today's prostate locations page.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's resources page names the Integrative Medicine program, the Genetic Counseling Program, the nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy and patient and family counseling, each reached from its own record. It also names the MCRG Patient and Family Learning Center in words written for gastrointestinal patients. No award is stated on any of today's prostate pages.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's specialists diagnose prostate cancer with MRI and targeted biopsy and plan treatment with you.

Learn More About Cancer
Urology

Urologists check PSA levels and refer you here when a test or exam points to prostate cancer.

Learn More About Urology
Radiology

Prostate MRI and PSMA PET scans show where the cancer is and help choose the treatment.

Learn More About Radiology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and...

Learn More About Cardiotoxicity
Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer
Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many...

Learn More About Spinal Tumors

View All Conditions

Treatments

Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Neuro-Oncology Center

Neuro-oncologists, neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists and specialized nurses who plan your care together for tumors of the brain and spinal cord, in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips and Ocoee.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team and the places are the live center page's and locations page's. No superlative: the live page's "best care" and "latest" wording is left out.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Neuro-Oncology Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. A brain or spinal cord tumor diagnosis can be hard for you and your family, and you will want a team of specialists who work together. Neuro-oncologists, neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists and specialized nurses plan your care around your tumor and your own needs, and they stay in close touch with you and your family through treatment.

We care for common and rare tumors of the brain and spinal cord: tumors that start in or around the brain, tumors that have spread to the brain from elsewhere in the body, and tumors at the base of the skull.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from the live center page and its treatments and our team pages, then the features (3 to 5 rows): the team that meets weekly, surgery, radiation, medicine and a wearable device, and rehabilitation with support, each stated on the live pages. The scope is the live page's "common and rare brain and spine tumors", with the tumor families its types section names.

Left out of the copy by the standing bars and the language rules: the live treatments page's sentence that Orlando Health is the only healthcare system in Orlando offering proton therapy (a "the only" claim, with no source on the page; it stays out of the copy); "superior"-style and survival-rate sentences on the live center page; the percentage figures for tumors that have spread to the brain (library-page content, and a volume-style figure); the live line that glioblastoma has no cure (the condition page's to state, with its clinical review). The Optune device is described on the live page as "being tested for other types of tumors"; only its use for glioblastoma is stated here.

What This Center Offers

A Team That Plans Together
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Team That Plans Together

Neuro-oncologists, neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, neuro-radiologists, neuropathologists and a clinical trial team meet every week to talk through each patient. Your care plan comes from that conversation, built around your tumor type, its genetic markers, its location, your age and your health.

Surgery to Remove Tumors Carefully
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery to Remove Tumors Carefully

Your neurosurgeon removes as much of the tumor as can be removed safely, while protecting the healthy parts of your brain. Often the biopsy that identifies the tumor also removes part or all of it.

Radiation Aimed With Precision
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Radiation Aimed With Precision

Radiation oncologists use external beam radiation and brachytherapy, and proton therapy when it fits, to target the tumor and spare the tissue around it.

Medicine and a Wearable Device
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Medicine and a Wearable Device

Chemotherapy, targeted therapies and biological therapies can treat tumors that respond to medicine. For glioblastoma, a wearable cap called the Optune device uses low-intensity electric fields to disrupt the way tumor cells grow and divide.

Rehabilitation and Support
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Rehabilitation and Support

Physical, occupational and speech therapists help you recover walking, eating, dressing and communication after treatment, and behavioral medicine specialists, a free first consultation with a counselor and a monthly brain and spine tumor support group are open to you and your family.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page, which lists three offices under the name Brain and Spine Tumor Center, one phone, (321) 841-7218: 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761; 7472 Docs Grove Cir., Orlando, FL 32819 (Dr. Phillips); and 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806 (downtown). The live our team page shows the neurosurgeons at the Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute, 76 W. Underwood St., 3rd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-7550, and the center's radiation oncologists at 1400 S. Orange Ave. with the number (321) 841-1869; the live resources page gives (321) 841-1869 for free counseling.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Neuro-Oncology Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, which is the doctor finder filtered to this center. The live page's doctor count is not used here.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment, or ask for a second opinion?

Call (321) 841-7218 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule a consultation or a second opinion, in person or by video.

How is a brain or spinal cord tumor diagnosed?

Often the first sign shows up on an imaging test done for another reason. Diagnosis starts with a physical exam, your medical history and a neurological exam, then an MRI or CT scan that shows the tumor's location and size. A biopsy identifies the tumor's type and whether it is cancerous, and a spinal tap may be added to check the fluid around the spine. Several specialists work together to reach a clear diagnosis.

Will I need surgery?

Surgery is often the first option for a brain tumor. Your team recommends the mix of treatments that fits you, which may include surgery, chemotherapy, targeted or biological therapies, radiation therapy or a combination, based on your tumor type, its genetic markers and location, your age and your health.

Who will be on my care team?

Neuro-oncologists, neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, neuro-radiologists, neuropathologists and a clinical trial team, with specialized nurses beside you at each step. Physical, occupational and speech therapists and behavioral medicine specialists join when your recovery calls for them.

What support is there after treatment?

Therapists help with walking, eating, dressing, using the bathroom and communicating. You and your family can also use a free first consultation with a counselor, nutrition counseling with a registered dietitian, the integrative medicine program and a monthly brain and spine tumor support group.

Can I take part in a clinical trial?

When it fits your diagnosis, your team may offer you a clinical trial of a promising new medicine or treatment. Find a Clinical Trial, further down this page, lists the trials open here.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments and patient resources pages. The phone in the first answer is the locations page's, and the open question on it is in the Locations note above.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Brain and Spine Tumor Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer you early access to a promising new medicine or treatment, and it helps discover better ways to detect and treat brain and spinal cord tumors. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's. The live page lists one glioma trial, and its title and its summary disagree on whether the study is Phase 3 or Phase 2.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's patient resources page states no award. It names these services, each reached from its own record: counseling (free consultation for outpatients, a referral for admitted patients), family planning through the Center for Reproductive Medicine, patient financial resources, the Epilepsy Foundation's information on Florida driving laws, the Integrative Medicine program and its therapies, genetic testing, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy, palliative care and hospice, living wills and advance directives, medical records through the patient portal, and the monthly brain and spine tumor support group. The page's medical marijuana entry is left for the library's own review.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists and neuro-oncologists treat brain and spine tumors together.

Learn More About Cancer
Neuroscience

Neurosurgeons at the Neuroscience Institute operate on brain and spine tumors with the center's team.

Learn More About Neuroscience
Advanced Rehabilitation

Physical, occupational and speech therapists help you regain strength and skills after brain or spine treatment.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers

View All Conditions

Treatments

Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Mediastinal Surgery

Mediastinal surgery reaches the space in the middle of your chest, between the lungs, to take a tissue sample or remove a...

Learn More About Mediastinal Surgery
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Gynecologic Cancer Center

Gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners and oncology nurses who plan your care together for cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal and vulvar cancers, with robotic surgery and fertility-sparing options, in Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team and the cancers are the center page's; the places are the locations page's. No superlative: the page's "epicenter of excellence" and "first" claims stay in the notes.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Gynecologic Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Gynecologic oncologists, doctors with training in obstetrics and gynecology and advanced fellowship training in gynecologic oncology, work with radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners and oncology nurses to plan your care. We know a diagnosis can affect fertility and what comes next for you, and we aim to give you expert, compassionate care that supports all your needs.

We care for cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal, vulvar and fallopian tube cancers, gestational trophoblastic disease and precancerous changes (dysplasia). Your plan can include diagnostic tests, surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, clinical trials and integrative medicine, with your team beside you through every step.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatments pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): robotic surgery, fertility-sparing options, care for precancerous changes, treatment planned by a team, and support during treatment, each stated on today's pages. The robotic trachelectomy claim is the center page's, and its words "first cancer center in Central Florida" are a ranking claim, so they stay in this note and out of the copy. Also kept out of the copy for the same reason or as a figure a library page would source: "epicenter of excellence" for robotic surgery, "one of the few programs in the region" for fertility-sparing surgery, the "Top Doctors in Orlando" and "America's Top Oncologists" lists, and the partnership section's "75 percent of all gynecologic surgeries" done minimally invasively (a share of volumes). The partnership section's three promotional blocks (Offering Expertise in Robotic Gynecologic Cancer Surgery, Experts in Minimally Invasive Gynecology, Concierge Services) have a title and a link and no body on the saved page, so nothing from them is used.

What This Center Offers

Robotic Surgery
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Robotic Surgery

When surgery is part of your plan, our surgeons can operate through small incisions with robotic help, which can mean less pain and a quicker return to your routine. We offer laparoscopic and robotic removal of a pelvic mass, and some surgeries take place at our partner, Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies.

Options for Fertility
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Options for Fertility

For certain gynecologic cancers, fertility-sparing surgery is an option, so you can talk with your doctor about your hopes for having children. Our surgeons have performed robotic trachelectomy, the surgical removal of the cervix, as a fertility-sparing option.

Care for Precancerous Changes
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Care for Precancerous Changes

When tests show abnormal cells, our team can treat them early with procedures such as LEEP, CO2 laser photoablation, hysteroscopy and endocervical curettage.

A Treatment Plan Made by a Team
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Treatment Plan Made by a Team

Your gynecologic oncologist, radiation oncologist and nurses plan your treatment together. It can include surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, based on your type and stage of cancer.

Support for the Whole Person
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for the Whole Person

Acupuncture, oncology massage, counseling, registered dietitians, genetic counseling and a nurse navigator who stays with you from your first visit are open to you and your family during treatment and beyond.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page of this center. The saved body lists: Gynecologic Cancer Center, 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761, (321) 841-8393; Orlando Health Cancer Institute, Ocoee, same address, (321) 841-1869; Orlando Health Cancer Institute Gynecologic Cancer Center, 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746, (321) 841-1869; Orlando Health Cancer Institute Gynecologic Cancer Center, 83 W. Miller St., Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-1869; and two Orlando Health Women's Institute offices, one at 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761 and the Women's Institute Center for Gynecology at 5600 Porada Dr., Suite 104B, Viera, FL 32940, (321) 459-1192.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Gynecologic Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page of this center.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

What is a gynecologic oncologist?

A gynecologic oncologist is a doctor who specializes in cancers of the female reproductive organs. They have training in obstetrics and gynecology plus advanced fellowship training in gynecologic oncology, and they are part of your care team here.

Can I still have children after treatment?

It depends on your cancer and your plan. Our team understands that a gynecologic cancer diagnosis can affect fertility, and fertility-sparing surgery is an option for certain gynecologic cancers. Talk with your doctor about your goals.

Will my surgery be done with small incisions?

Our surgeons offer minimally invasive robotic surgery, and your surgeon recommends the approach that fits your cancer, your health and your goals.

Can you treat precancerous changes?

Yes. We care for precancerous diseases such as dysplasia, with procedures that include LEEP, CO2 laser photoablation and endocervical curettage.

What support is there during treatment?

Your nurse navigator stays with you through your whole journey. Integrative medicine offers acupuncture, oncology massage, meditation and yoga, registered dietitians help with nutrition and side effects, and counselors support you and your family.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments and patient resources pages and the institute's request an appointment page. Phone: (321) 841-1869 is the institute's main line and the number most of this center's offices list.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Gynecologic Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's resources page names the Integrative Medicine program (for more than 30 years, at (321) 841-5056), the Genetic Counseling Program, the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library, nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy and the Patient and Family Counseling Department, each reached from its own record. The center page's recognitions (two "Top" lists for its gynecologic oncologists and the "epicenter of excellence" robotic surgery designation) are rankings and stay out of the copy; see module 2's note.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's gynecologic oncologists treat ovarian, cervical, uterine and other gynecologic cancers.

Learn More About Cancer
Women's

Gynecologists often find the first sign of a gynecologic cancer and refer you to this center.

Learn More About Women's

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancers
Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or...

Learn More About Ovarian Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer Screening
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon...

Learn More About HIPEC

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Head and Neck Cancer Center

Head and neck surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, dental oncologists and reconstructive surgeons who plan your care together for cancers of the nose, sinuses, mouth, throat and neck, in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team is the live center page's and our team page's; the places are the locations page's. No superlative: the live page's "leading-edge," "best expertise" and "clinical outcomes" wording is left out, as is the treatments page's "the only proton center in Central Florida" (a sourced-on-page claim that stays out of the copy under the standing bars). The cancers are the narrower list in the Cancer Institute page's description (mouth, nose and throat) widened only by the sinuses and neck, which every live page names.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Head and Neck Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Our fellowship-trained oncologists treat cancers of the nose and sinuses, mouth, throat, voice box, salivary glands and neck, along with thyroid and skin cancers. Surgeons, oncologists, dental oncologists, reconstructive surgeons, speech and language pathologists and physical therapists work together on a plan made for your type and stage of cancer.

We know how overwhelming a diagnosis can feel. Your team works to treat your cancer and, at the same time, to protect or restore your appearance, your facial structure and the things you do every day, such as speaking, eating and hearing. A nurse navigator guides you and your family from diagnosis through survivorship.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatments pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): free screening and the self-exam guide, surgery through small approaches, reconstruction and the return of speech and eating, precise radiation, and the nurse navigator with the weekly tumor board, each stated on today's pages. The live pages' body parts: mouth, throat (nasopharynx, oropharynx, hypopharynx), voice box, nasal cavity and sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid, skin and the lymph nodes of the neck. Left out of the copy under the standing bars: the share of new cancer diagnoses (about 4 percent), the live page's count of fellowship-trained surgeons, "the only proton center in Central Florida," and "leading-edge." The free screening row states the live page's own sentence that a free periodic screening is offered; the live page also says current national guidelines do not recommend routine screening, a sentence that stays on the screening library page where the guidelines are explained.

What This Center Offers

Free Head and Neck Screening
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Free Head and Neck Screening

Our team offers periodic head and neck cancer screening free of charge. A free self-exam guide also walks you through checking your mouth, throat and neck at home, so you can tell your doctor about any change.

Surgery Through Small Approaches
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery Through Small Approaches

Our head and neck surgeons use minimally invasive methods whenever they can, including robotic surgery that works from inside the mouth, laser-assisted surgery, endoscopic surgery and sentinel lymph node biopsy.

Rebuilding Form and Function
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Rebuilding Form and Function

When a tumor is more advanced, our head and neck plastic and reconstructive surgeons rebuild what the cancer has changed. Speech and language pathologists and physical therapists help you keep or regain speaking, eating and hearing.

Radiation for Delicate Areas
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Radiation for Delicate Areas

Our radiation oncologists use intensity-modulated radiation and proton therapy to aim at tumors in the small spaces of the head and neck, which protects healthy tissue and can mean fewer side effects.

A Navigator and a Weekly Review
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Navigator and a Weekly Review

A certified nurse navigator coordinates your care and removes some of the burden from you and your family. Every week, the whole head and neck team reviews patient cases together and builds treatment plans with many physicians.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. From the saved body, one phone, (321) 841-1869, at four places: Orlando Health Cancer Institute - Downtown Orlando, 22 W. Underwood St., Orlando, FL 32806; Lake Mary, 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746; Ocoee, 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761; and Horizon West, 17000 Porter Rd., Winter Garden, FL 34787. The doctor profiles on the our team page also list speech pathology offices and offices in Clermont.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Head and Neck Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, whose roster includes surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, reconstructive surgeons and speech pathology providers. The live center page also describes the team by role, which the Who We Are copy repeats without a name.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

What signs should I tell a doctor about?

A sore or ulcer in your mouth, throat or on your skin that lasts several weeks, a lump or swelling in your neck, voice changes, trouble or pain when swallowing, loose teeth or dentures that no longer fit, bleeding from your mouth or nose, and one-sided ear pain that does not go away. Also tell a doctor about trouble breathing, numbness or weakness in your face, or weight loss you cannot explain. Many of these have other causes, and a doctor can tell you which. Our head and neck cancer screening page explains what to look for.

Do you offer screening?

Yes. Our team offers periodic head and neck cancer screening free of charge, and a free self-exam guide shows you how to check at home, step by step.

Will I need surgery?

Treatment often starts with surgery, and some people also need radiation therapy, medication or both. Your team designs a plan for your type of cancer and your goals, and uses minimally invasive methods whenever they can.

Who will be on my care team?

Head and neck surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, dental oncologists, speech and language pathologists, physical therapists and a nurse navigator. They meet every week to review patient cases and shape each treatment plan.

What support is there for my family?

You and your family can use the integrative medicine program, counseling and support groups, genetic counseling and the community health library, which lends books and videos about cancer and its treatment. Registered dietitians support you through treatment.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments and patient resources pages and the institute's request an appointment page. The symptom answer states the live treatments page's own list in short form and sends a person to a doctor; the full list lives on the head and neck cancers condition page. The appointment line is the one number on the locations page.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Head and Neck Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer you early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. The live pages state no award. The patient resources page names the Integrative Medicine program, Genetic Counseling, the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library, nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, Oncology Massage Therapy and Patient and Family Counseling, each reached from its own record, plus a glossary of head and neck cancer terms (ablation, biopsy, tumor board and others) that goes to the condition page, and the free head and neck self-exam guide, which stays with the screening library page.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's surgeons and oncologists treat cancers of the mouth, throat, nose and voice box.

Learn More About Cancer
Advanced Rehabilitation

Speech and swallowing therapists help you eat, drink and speak after head and neck treatment.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Reconstructive surgeons restore the face, jaw and neck after head and neck cancer surgery.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers

View All Conditions

Treatments

Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds the parts of the mouth, jaw, throat, face or neck removed during cancer...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction
Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancer Screening

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Liver Cancer Center

Fellowship-trained surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists and liver specialists who plan your care together for cancer that starts in the liver or spreads to it, with dedicated patient navigators beside you from diagnosis through recovery.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The cancers are the center page's; the place is the locations page's. Today's center page says the team is "nationally recognized for treating the disease" with no source shown, so the hero makes no recognition claim.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Liver Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Our fellowship-trained physicians care for every part of liver cancer treatment. Surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, liver specialists, palliative medicine physicians and nutrition specialists plan your care together, so it fits you and your diagnosis.

We care for primary liver cancer, which starts in the liver, including hepatocellular carcinoma and bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma). We also care for secondary liver cancer, which starts elsewhere in the body and spreads to the liver and is more common than primary liver cancer. If you are worried by symptoms or a test result, the center's navigators help you get seen and plan the next step.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatment pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows), each stated on today's pages: surgery (hepatectomy, staged liver surgery, liver transplant), treatments that destroy or shrink tumors without removing the liver (ablation, embolization, chemoembolization, radiation), internal radiation with Yttrium-90 for cancer that has spread to the liver, histotripsy with its own page, and dedicated patient navigators. Today's treatment page promises "the best liver cancer care in Florida" and describes "nationally recognized expertise"; neither is stated with a source, so both stay out of the copy. Its Yttrium-90 passage states a dose comparison with external radiation that belongs to the library treatment page. Histotripsy insurance coverage: today's histotripsy page says private insurers may handle it differently and that Medicare should cover it when reasonable and necessary; the library treatment page and the insurances module own that, and the copy makes no coverage promise.

What This Center Offers

Liver Surgery
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Liver Surgery

For early-stage cancer in an otherwise healthy liver, a surgeon may remove the part of the liver that holds the tumor in a hepatectomy. When the whole liver must be removed, a liver transplant is an option for some people. When both sides of the liver are affected, staged surgery treats each in a separate operation.

Histotripsy
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Histotripsy

Histotripsy destroys liver tumors with focused sound waves, without incisions, needles or radiation. It is an outpatient treatment, often completed in about an hour, and many people go home the same day.

Treatments That Target Tumors
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Treatments That Target Tumors

When surgery cannot safely remove the tumor, we offer ablation that destroys tumors with heat, embolization that cuts off a tumor's blood supply, radiation, chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy.

Radiation From Inside the Liver
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Radiation From Inside the Liver

For cancer that has spread to the liver, Yttrium-90 glass spheres deliver radiation directly to the tumor through a catheter, which helps protect healthy tissue around it.

A Navigator for Liver Cancer
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Navigator for Liver Cancer

A dedicated patient navigator helps you get into care, keeps you, your family and your doctors in touch, and clears the obstacles that come up, from your first visit through treatment and recovery.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. From the saved body, one listing: Orlando Health Cancer Institute - Downtown Orlando, 1400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-1869.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Liver Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, a doctor-finder listing that mixes liver surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists and hepatologists with physicians whose profiles name other institutes; the narrowing should keep only those who treat liver cancer.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit. If you have been diagnosed with liver cancer, or you have symptoms that worry you, our navigators help you take the next step.

Will I need surgery?

Not always. Surgery fits early-stage cancer in an otherwise healthy liver when the tumors are small. When surgery cannot safely remove a tumor, other treatments can destroy it or slow its growth. Your team recommends the plan that fits your diagnosis, your health and your preferences.

What is histotripsy, and am I a candidate?

Histotripsy uses focused sound waves to destroy liver tumors without incisions, needles or radiation. You receive general anesthesia, the treatment often takes about an hour, and many people go home the same day. If you have a liver tumor, you may be a candidate, and your liver specialist can tell you more.

What if my cancer started somewhere else and spread to my liver?

This is called secondary liver cancer. Our team has treatments for it, including staged liver surgery, Yttrium-90 radiation delivered through a catheter, and chemoembolization, which delivers chemotherapy directly to the tumor.

Can I take part in a clinical trial?

When it fits your diagnosis, your doctor may offer you a clinical trial of a promising new medicine or treatment. The Find a Clinical Trial button below opens the trials open at this center.

What support is there for my family and me?

The integrative medicine program, which offers its services at no charge, registered dietitians, genetic counseling, and patient and family counseling with support groups are open to you and your family while you are treated with us. Your navigator helps you find each one.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatment, histotripsy and resources pages and the institute's request an appointment page. The phone number is the downtown Cancer Institute listing, the only one on today's locations page.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Liver Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's resources page names the Integrative Medicine program, the Genetic Counseling Program, the nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy and patient and family counseling, each reached from its own record, and the MCRG Patient and Family Learning Center, which it describes for gastrointestinal cancer patients. The only recognition on today's liver pages is the unsourced "nationally recognized" phrase noted in modules 1 and 2; no award is stated.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's surgeons and oncologists treat liver tumors with surgery, ablation, radiation and medicine.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Liver specialists in digestive health care for the liver disease that often comes before liver cancer.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Interventional radiologists treat liver tumors through small catheters and track them with scans.

Learn More About Radiology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

Learn More About Gallbladder Cancer
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

Learn More About Lung Nodules
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma

View All Conditions

Treatments

Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Endocrine Cancer Center

Endocrinologists, surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses who plan your care together for cancers of the thyroid, adrenal and parathyroid glands and for neuroendocrine tumors, in Ocoee.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team is the live center page's; the place is the locations page's. No superlative: the live page's "trusted care," "top care" and "the latest procedures" wording is left out. The cancers named are the ones the live page's Types of Endocrine Cancer section lists.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Endocrine Cancer Center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Our fellowship-trained physicians care for cancers of the glands that make the hormones controlling your cells and organs. Endocrinologists, endocrine surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses work together to plan your care around the type of tumor and where it is.

We treat thyroid cancer, adrenal cancer, parathyroid cancer and neuroendocrine tumors. We also care for tumors of the adrenal, thyroid and parathyroid glands that are not cancer, which sometimes need surgery or medicine when they affect how the gland works. We know a diagnosis touches you and your family, so one coordinated team handles every part of your treatment.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center and treatments pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): minimally invasive surgery, thyroid nodule treatment without surgery, testing that finds the cause, one coordinated team, and treatment beyond surgery, each stated on today's pages. The cancers, from the center page: adrenal cancer; thyroid cancer, including differentiated (papillary and follicular), medullary and anaplastic; parathyroid cancer; neuroendocrine cancer; and benign tumors of the adrenal, thyroid and parathyroid glands that may need surgery or medicine. Left out of the copy under the standing bars: "among the first in Orlando" for thyroid radiofrequency ablation, the average nodule shrinkage percentage, and the "high cure rate" wording on thyroid cancer, which is a prognosis claim; the condition pages hold the detail. The thyroid cancers overlap the Head and Neck Cancer Center's scope.

What This Center Offers

Minimally Invasive Surgery
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Minimally Invasive Surgery

Surgery is often the first choice for endocrine tumors. We offer minimally invasive surgeries that can shorten your recovery, lower the risk of complications and get you home sooner, including parathyroid surgery through a small incision in your neck, about an inch wide.

Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Thyroid Nodules Without Surgery

Most thyroid nodules are not cancer. For a benign nodule that makes swallowing or breathing harder, shows at the base of your neck or affects how your thyroid works, radiofrequency ablation shrinks it with a small needle guided by ultrasound, and you go home the same day. A nodule that is cancer is usually treated with surgery.

Testing That Finds the Cause
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Testing That Finds the Cause

Blood and urine tests look for hormone levels that are out of range. Ultrasound, CT, MRI and PET scans show the gland, a biopsy checks the tissue, and genetic testing helps you understand your family's risk.

One Coordinated Team
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

One Coordinated Team

One team plans your care and handles every part of it, from your first visit through follow-up, so you are never passed between offices to find out what happens next.

Care Beyond Surgery
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Care Beyond Surgery

When surgery is not enough, your team may add radiation therapy, medicines such as chemotherapy or radioactive iodine, or immunotherapy, which helps your own immune system respond to cancer cells.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. From the saved body, one place: Orlando Health Cancer Institute - Endocrine Oncology, 10000 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761, (321) 841-1869. The other three centers' pages list their Ocoee office at 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761 under the same phone.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Endocrine Cancer Center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, whose roster includes cancer surgery, hematology and oncology and head and neck cancer specialties.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

Does a thyroid nodule mean I have cancer?

Usually not. Most thyroid nodules are not cancer, and many need no treatment. If a benign nodule bothers you, for example by making it hard to swallow or breathe, or if surgery has been recommended for it, our team can evaluate you for radiofrequency ablation, which treats the nodule without surgery. A nodule that is cancer is usually treated with surgery, and your team tells you when a nodule needs a closer look.

Will I need surgery?

Often, yes, since surgery is frequently the first choice for endocrine tumors, and we use minimally invasive methods. Some people also need radiation therapy, medicine or immunotherapy. Your team plans the combination that fits your type of cancer and where it is.

What tests will I have?

Your doctor begins with an exam and your personal and family history, then may order blood and urine tests for hormone levels, an ultrasound, CT, MRI or PET scan, and a biopsy to check a small sample of tissue.

Does endocrine cancer run in families?

Sometimes. Some endocrine cancers are linked to inherited conditions, so your doctor may suggest genetic testing to help you understand your own risk and your family's.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center and treatments pages and the institute's request an appointment page. The appointment line is the one number on the locations page.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Endocrine Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer you early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. The live pages state no award and have no resources page for this center, so the support the institute offers (the Integrative Medicine program, nutrition, counseling, genetic counseling and the nurse navigators) reaches this page from its own records.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's surgeons and oncologists treat thyroid, adrenal and other endocrine tumors.

Learn More About Cancer
Endocrinology

Endocrinologists manage your hormone levels and thyroid medicine before and after treatment.

Learn More About Endocrinology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for...

Learn More About Appendectomy
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

Learn More About Colorectal Surgery

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Hematologist-oncologists, radiation oncologists and a full support team plan your care together for leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and noncancerous blood disorders, in downtown Orlando, Ocoee and Lake Mary.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The conditions are the treatments page's; the places are the three offices that the locations page and the doctor list both show. No superlative; the live page's "best possible outcome" is not repeated.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma program is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Blood cancers form in blood-forming tissues or in immune system cells, and leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main types. Our hematologist-oncologists care for these cancers and for noncancerous blood disorders.

Specialists in blood cancers and blood disorders work together to plan your treatment around the type of condition you have, the stage and progression of a cancer, your age and overall health, and other factors. Resources and support services address your whole self, including your physical, emotional and social needs.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center, treatments and patient resources pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): the team that meets to plan, the treatments matched to each diagnosis, noncancerous blood disorders, a possible transplant, and the support around treatment, each stated on today's pages. The live pages name leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma as the three main blood cancers and list myelodysplastic syndrome and Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia among the conditions treated. No noncancerous blood disorder is named on any live page, so none is named here.

What This Center Offers

A Team That Plans Together
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Team That Plans Together

Hematologist-oncologists, radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, dietitians and counselors meet regularly to discuss and coordinate your personalized treatment plan.

Treatment Matched to Your Diagnosis
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Treatment Matched to Your Diagnosis

Your plan may combine chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other medicines that target abnormal cells or help your own immune system respond to cancer cells.

Care for Blood Disorders Too
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Care for Blood Disorders Too

If your blood test points to a disorder that is not cancer, the same hematologist-oncologists evaluate and treat it, so you do not need a second referral to a different team.

When a Transplant May Help
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

When a Transplant May Help

In some cases your team may recommend a bone marrow transplant. Our Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute.

Support for the Whole Person
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for the Whole Person

A personal nurse navigator, registered dietitians, genetic counseling, patient and family counseling and an integrative medicine program with services at no charge are open to you and your family.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page. One phone, (321) 841-1869, appears on the locations page and on every provider on the team page. ⚠️ The live pages disagree. Today's locations page labels each of its four offices "Melanoma and Sarcoma Center" (a copy-and-paste label from another center's page) and lists 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761; 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746; 22 W. Underwood St., 3rd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806; and 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806. The team page shows the doctors at Orlando Health Cancer Institute, Downtown Orlando (1400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32806); Ocoee (9900 W. Colonial Dr.); Lake Mary (210 Rinehart Rd.); the Outpatient Infusion Center, Dr. Phillips (7472 Docs Grove Cir., Orlando, FL 32819); St. Cloud (1330 Budinger Ave., St. Cloud, FL 34769); and the Breast Care and Gynecologic Cancer Center (83 W. Miller St., Orlando, FL 32806). The hero names the three offices both pages show.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma program. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, which lists hematology and oncology physicians and advanced practice providers, with Arabic, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Panjabi, Spanish and Urdu among the languages they speak.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. You can visit one of our offices, and a virtual visit lets you talk with a physician from your phone, tablet or computer.

Which blood conditions do you treat?

We treat leukemia, including acute and chronic leukemias; lymphoma, including Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia; multiple myeloma; myelodysplastic syndrome; and noncancerous blood disorders.

How is a blood cancer treated?

Your treatment depends on the type of blood cancer or blood disorder, the stage and progression of a cancer, your age and overall health, and other factors. It may combine chemotherapy, radiation therapy and other medicines, and in some cases a bone marrow transplant.

Who will be on my care team?

Hematologist-oncologists, radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, dietitians, counselors and more. They meet regularly to coordinate your plan, and a personal nurse navigator stays in touch with you and your family through your care.

What support is there for me and my family?

Ask your nurse navigator. They connect you and your family with counseling and support groups, dietitians, genetic counseling, the integrative medicine program and the community health library, and they stay with you through treatment.

Can I take part in a clinical trial?

When it fits your diagnosis, your doctor may offer you a clinical trial of a promising new medicine or treatment. The Find a Clinical Trial button below opens the trials open at this center.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments, locations and patient resources pages and the virtual visit panel those pages share.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Blood Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. No award is stated on any of the center's live pages. Today's patient resources page names the Integrative Medicine program (acupuncture, oncology massage, meditation, relaxation techniques, tai chi and qi gong, yoga and hypnotherapy), the Genetic Counseling Program, the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library, personal nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy, and the Patient and Family Counseling Department, each reached from its own record.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's hematologic oncologists treat leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists study your blood and bone marrow to name the exact type of blood cancer.

Learn More About Pathology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers
Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system,...

Learn More About Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

View All Conditions

Treatments

Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

Learn More About Breast Reconstruction
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Melanoma and Skin Cancer

Dermatologists, surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists and plastic surgeons who plan your care together for melanoma and other skin cancers, from early stage to advanced, in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team is the center page's list; the places are the locations page's. No superlative: the page's "most advanced" and its "one of only two locations in Florida" stay in the notes.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Melanoma and Skin Cancer center is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Dermatologists, surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, plastic surgeons and a dedicated research team work together to plan your care from your first diagnosis visit through survivorship, based on your own needs. We explain all of your options and help you decide on the right path together.

We treat melanoma, basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, Merkel cell carcinoma, mucosal and uveal melanomas, skin lymphomas, cancer that has spread to the skin and precancerous skin lesions. If your family history, past skin cancer, genetics or abnormal moles put you at higher risk, we can monitor your skin and provide ongoing care to help you stay healthy.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's center, treatments and immunotherapy pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): immunotherapy and targeted therapy, TIL therapy, surgery and skin treatments, a neuro team for melanoma that reaches the brain, and a navigator with support, each stated on today's pages. The TIL claim "one of only two locations in Florida" is the treatments page's and is a "the only" style claim, so it stays in this note and out of the copy; the TIL page's phrases "the most advanced options", "the newest treatments" and "turn the tide of the battle" are also left out (R9). The candidate criteria and the process steps belong on the TIL therapy treatment page. The Melanoma Nurse Navigator is named on the TIL page (its button emails the navigator); the institute's navigator copy names breast, lung, gastrointestinal and blood cancers as examples.

What This Center Offers

Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy

We offer several immunotherapies that help your immune system find and attack cancer, including checkpoint blockade, combination immunotherapy and oncolytic virus therapy. Targeted therapies can act on specific changes in your cancer's DNA, found through genetic testing of your tumor.

TIL Therapy for Advanced Melanoma
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

TIL Therapy for Advanced Melanoma

When surgery and other treatments are not enough, tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is one more option. Immune cells are taken from your own tumor, multiplied in a lab and given back to you in one infusion, during a hospital stay that includes preparatory chemotherapy. Your oncologist can tell you whether you may be a candidate.

Surgery and Skin Treatments
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Surgery and Skin Treatments

Depending on your diagnosis, your plan can include topical medicines, cryosurgery, phototherapy, surgery, radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Specialists from several fields meet at our tumor board to decide on the best plan for you.

A Team for the Brain
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Team for the Brain

Melanoma can sometimes travel to the brain. If it does, neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists who specialize in the nervous system join your team.

A Navigator and Support Beside You
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Navigator and Support Beside You

A nurse navigator helps you through your care. Integrative medicine, registered dietitians, counseling and genetic counseling are open to you and your family before, during and after treatment.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page of this center. The saved body lists four offices, each labeled Melanoma and Sarcoma Center: 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761; 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746; 22 W. Underwood St., 3rd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806, (321) 841-1869; and 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Melanoma and Skin Cancer center. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page of this center.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

Which skin cancers do you treat?

Melanoma, basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, Merkel cell carcinoma and the rarer skin cancers listed under Conditions below, from early stage to advanced.

I am at higher risk but do not have cancer. Can the center help?

Yes. If your family history, past skin cancer, genetics, abnormal moles or other conditions raise your risk, our team can monitor you and provide ongoing care to help you stay healthy.

What is immunotherapy?

Immunotherapies are medicines that stimulate your immune system to act against cancer. They can be synthetic immune system proteins or medicines that help your body release cells that attack cancer cells. Your team explains each option and helps you understand every step.

What is TIL therapy, and who may be a candidate?

TIL therapy uses immune cells taken from your own tumor, multiplied in a lab and returned to you in one infusion during a hospital stay. It may be an option if you have advanced melanoma that has not responded to other treatments, or if you are not a candidate for other immunotherapy. Your oncologist evaluates whether it fits you.

What if melanoma reaches my brain?

Our neuro team, which includes neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists who specialize in the nervous system, joins your care team to help you.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments, immunotherapy, TIL therapy and resources pages and the institute's request an appointment page. Phone: (321) 841-1869 is the institute's main line and the number the locations page gives. The self-exam guidance and the center page's line that skin cancers are highly curable when caught early stay with the library's skin cancer screening page.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Melanoma and Skin Cancer Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer access to a promising new treatment for melanoma or skin cancer. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center clinical trials page goes to the corporate page, like every institute's; the TIL page's cellular therapy trial paragraph (first-line melanoma and several other cancers, with an email to the Adult Oncology Trial Team) belongs to the corporate page too.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. The center's pages state no award. Today's resources page names the Integrative Medicine program (for more than 30 years, at (321) 841-5056), the Genetic Counseling Program, the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library, nurse navigators, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy and the Patient and Family Counseling Department, each reached from its own record. The center page offers a free skin cancer self-exam guide, which belongs with the library.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's surgeons and oncologists treat melanoma and other skin cancers, including with immunotherapy.

Learn More About Cancer
Dermatology

Dermatologists check your skin, biopsy a changing mole and refer you here when it is melanoma.

Learn More About Dermatology
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons repair the skin after a melanoma or skin cancer is removed.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer

View All Conditions

Treatments

Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancer Screening
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Liver Transplant

A liver transplant replaces a liver that no longer works, or one with early cancer, with a healthy liver from a donor. It is...

Learn More About Liver Transplant

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Sarcoma

Surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists who plan your care together for cancers of the bone and soft tissues, with offices in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team is the live center page's; the places are the live locations page's. No superlative: the live page's "highest quality of life" and "outstanding care" wording is left out.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Sarcoma program is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. We understand how hard it can be to hear that you have a sarcoma or another cancer of the bone or soft tissue, and our team is here to make each step easier for you, from diagnosis through treatment and beyond.

Oncologists, radiation oncologists and surgeons, with psychologists, nutritionists and physical therapists beside them, work together to find the right treatment for you. We care for sarcomas and the other cancers of the bone and soft tissue, and we look after the whole person, so you can have the best quality of life possible before, during and after treatment.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from the live center and treatments pages, then the features (3 to 5 rows): the bone cancers, the soft tissue cancers, the treatments and the team around the whole person, each stated on the live pages. The live center page says the specialists have experience with "more than 50 different types of sarcoma"; that is a count of types rather than patients, but it is a scope claim with no source on the page, so it stays out of the copy.

What This Center Offers

Bone Cancers
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Bone Cancers

We care for chondrosarcoma, chordoma, Ewing sarcoma, osteosarcoma, giant cell tumor and cancer that has spread to the bone from elsewhere in the body.

Soft Tissue Cancers
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Soft Tissue Cancers

We care for angiosarcoma, dermatofibrosarcoma, epithelioid sarcoma, fibrosarcoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), Kaposi sarcoma, leiomyosarcoma, liposarcoma, pleomorphic undifferentiated sarcoma, malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor, rhabdomyosarcoma and synovial sarcoma.

A Full Range of Treatments
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Full Range of Treatments

Your team works with you to choose among surgery, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy, including external and internal radiation, stereotactic ablative radiation therapy and proton therapy.

Support for the Whole Person
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Support for the Whole Person

Psychologists, nutritionists, physical therapists, patient and family counseling, genetic counseling and the integrative medicine program support you and your family before, during and after treatment.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the center's office records. It replaces today's /locations page, which lists four offices under the name Melanoma and Sarcoma Center: 9900 W. Colonial Dr., Ocoee, FL 34761; 210 Rinehart Rd., Lake Mary, FL 32746; 22 W. Underwood St., 3rd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806; and 1400 S. Orange Ave., 2nd Floor, Orlando, FL 32806. The one phone the page and the doctor finder give is (321) 841-1869.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Sarcoma program. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, which is the doctor finder filtered to this center. The live list includes surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, a dermatologist and plastic and reconstructive surgeons across the institute's offices.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 841-1869 or request an appointment online. A member of our team contacts you to schedule your visit, in person or by video.

Which cancers does the team treat?

We care for bone cancers, including chondrosarcoma, chordoma, Ewing sarcoma, osteosarcoma and giant cell tumor, and for soft tissue cancers such as liposarcoma, leiomyosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and synovial sarcoma. Our team also treats cancer that has spread to the bone from elsewhere in the body.

What treatments are available?

Surgery, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, external and internal radiation therapy, stereotactic ablative radiation therapy and proton therapy. Your team works with you to find the right options for your cancer and your goals.

Who will be on my care team?

A surgeon, a medical oncologist and a radiation oncologist plan your treatment together, and the Meet Our Doctors list above shows who they are at each office.

What support is there for me and my family?

You and your family can use the integrative medicine program, patient and family counseling with state-licensed counselors, the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library and the Nutrition Department's registered dietitians.

Can I talk with someone about my family's risk of cancer?

Yes. The Cancer Genetics Program offers genetic counseling to help you and your family learn about your possible risk of a hereditary cancer, with genetic testing when it fits, so you can make informed choices about your health.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's center, treatments and resources pages. The phone is the locations page's.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Sarcoma Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your doctor whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this center.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this center's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's center has no clinical trials page, so the banner is the standard one; the corporate page it opens shows whatever is open for sarcoma.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. Today's resources page states no award. It names the Integrative Medicine program (more than 30 years, no charge) and its therapies, the Clifford E. Graese Community Health Library, genetic counseling through the Cancer Genetics Program, the Nutrition Department, oncology massage therapy, and patient and family counseling, each reached from its own record. The live page's figure that genetics plays a major role in 5% to 10% of all cancers is attributed there to the National Cancer Institute and is left for the library.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The center's surgeons and oncologists treat sarcomas of the bone and soft tissue.

Learn More About Cancer
Advanced Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation therapists help you rebuild strength and movement after sarcoma surgery.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Radiology

Radiologists read the MRI and CT scans that find a sarcoma and guide its biopsy.

Learn More About Radiology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancers
Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in...

Learn More About Penile Cancer
Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage...

Learn More About Sarcoma
Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many...

Learn More About Spinal Tumors
Uterine Cancer

Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that...

Learn More About Uterine Cancer

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Treatments

Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

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Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment
OH Cancer Institute

Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program

Oncologists, nurses, researchers and counselors guide you through bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy for cancers and blood disorders, from evaluation through follow-up care, all at one downtown Orlando location.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library
About this module

Template module · Written copy, the hero description field (ours). The button is Request an Appointment. The team, the evaluation through follow-up sequence and the single downtown location are the live pages'. No "state-of-the-art," no "nationally recognized" and no age group appears here; see the age-group note in module 2.

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Request an Appointment. A center of the institute, a program since the 2026-10-28 review call, books through the institute; one action.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGThe Marketer's Playground features what the marketer wants to highlight

The feature accordion is a module, or a set of them, on any page type, for what the marketing team wants to feature about how they market the line or place: a program, a class, an event, parking or language access, a community program, a timely change, a real choice such as planning a high-risk birth. Each row: a headline, a short paragraph, a 5:4 photo, zero, one or two buttons. A row can point to a page that exists; it never repeats a module on the same page.

  • The designer's frames show the row with no button, one button and two buttons.
  • A high-risk birth is the one real choice on the neonatal line, so it is the line page's first row.

Decided 2026-10-20

Who We Are

The Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program is part of Orlando Health Cancer Institute. We understand how hard it can be to hear a cancer or another serious diagnosis. Our program treats conditions that affect the body's bone marrow, and our team guides you through the whole process and supports you at every step.

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces cancerous or faulty cells inside your marrow with healthy ones. Bone marrow is the spongy material inside your bones, and its main job is to make the stem cells that become red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. We can use your own stem cells or cells from a donor. The program is accredited by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT).

We treat cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and multiple myeloma, and noncancerous conditions such as aplastic anemia, sickle cell disease and thalassemia. Oncologists, pathologists, radiologists, nurses, therapists, researchers and counselors work together as one team to help you.

About this module

Template module · Who We Are, from today's program, conditions and what to expect pages, then the features (§11.9, 3 to 5 rows): what a transplant involves (from What to Expect), where the cells come from (the FAQ and conditions pages), cellular therapy (the conditions page's treatment types), the on-site stem cell laboratory (the program page's photo set) and care in one place (the program page and the FAQ's lodging answer). The program's accreditation by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) is stated on today's program page and appears here as the plain fact of accreditation; the live page's "global standard" and "mark of excellence" wording is a ranking-style claim and is not repeated. ⚠️ The live pages disagree on who the program treats. The program, conditions and FAQ pages say adults and children, and the institute page's card says the same, while the doctor finder's Patient Group filter on today's team page offers Adult only, and none of its nine providers lists a pediatric specialty. Following the narrower claim, the hero and card blurb name no age group, and the FAQ repeats the live answer about children. The older duplicate set at the cell therapy address uses "cell" and "cells" where the current set says "stem cell" and "stem cells," and "Cell Therapy" where the current set says "Cellular Therapy"; this page follows the current set. The live program page's H1 reads "Cellular Therapy," while the inner heading of the same page reads "Cell Therapy"; the page name here is the institute card's "Cellular Therapy."

What This Center Offers

What a Transplant Involves
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

What a Transplant Involves

We begin with an evaluation that includes only the tests you need. Healthy stem cells are collected, and you receive high-dose chemotherapy or radiation for five to 10 days to prepare your body. On transplant day the new stem cells arrive through an IV in about 30 minutes while you are awake, and you should not feel pain.

Your Cells or a Donor's
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Your Cells or a Donor's

Autologous transplants use your own stem cells, and allogeneic transplants use donor stem cells. A family member, often a sibling or a parent, may be a match, and we can also search the National Marrow Donor Program and other registries. Umbilical cord blood transplants are also available.

Cellular Therapy
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Cellular Therapy

Our program also offers CAR-T cell therapy, TCR therapy, tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, dendritic cell vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and immune checkpoint inhibitors, immunotherapies that help your immune system respond to cancer.

A Stem Cell Laboratory On Site
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

A Stem Cell Laboratory On Site

Our dedicated 3,000-square-foot Stem Cell Laboratory processes and stores the cells used in transplants, CAR-T cell therapies, gene therapies and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte immunotherapies, so the work happens close to your care.

Care in One Place
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Care in One Place

You can have your transplant and your follow-up care in one location, with no need to travel to other cities or hospitals. For families from out of the area, we have prearranged hotel rates, and administration at (407) 498-3432 can help you find a place to stay.

Our Locations

About this module

Template module · Fills itself from the program's office records. It replaces today's /locations page, which lists Orlando Health Cancer Institute, Downtown Orlando, 1400 S. Orange Ave., Orlando, FL 32806. ⚠️ The live pages disagree on the phone. The current locations page lists the same downtown address twice, once with (321) 843-8010 and once with (321) 841-1869. The team page shows (321) 843-8010 for all nine providers, and the older duplicate locations page shows only (321) 841-1869. The FAQ below uses (321) 843-8010, the number the team page shows.

Meet Our Doctors

Type a city or zip code
Use My Location
Type a doctor's first or last name
Female Male
View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
123›
About this module

Template module · Fills itself, narrowed to the Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program. Nothing is supplied. It replaces today's /our-team page, which lists physicians, nurse practitioners and a physician assistant, all at the downtown office, with Arabic and English among the languages they speak.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Insurances We Accept

[The plans this team accepts, from its record]

View Hospital Based Insurance
View Physician Based Insurance
About this module

Template module · Fills itself. Nothing is supplied.

Questions People Ask Us

How do I make an appointment?

Call (321) 843-8010 or request an appointment online. Our team helps you plan your visit, including a first evaluation, so you only have the tests you need.

How do you find a donor?

Often a family member is a match, and siblings and parents are tested first. We can also search the National Marrow Donor Program and other registries to find a compatible donor.

What are the side effects of a transplant?

Side effects depend on whether the stem cells come from your own cells (autologous) or a donor (allogeneic). Either type can cause low blood counts (anemia), fever, mouth sores, nausea and vomiting. With donor cells, the main risks are that the body rejects the cells or develops graft-versus-host disease, when the donor cells attack the body. After any transplant your immune system is weak for a time, so you are more open to infection, and your team shows you how to lower that risk, from hand washing to avoiding people who are sick. You also carry a transplant patient card with your physician's contact information, for any other healthcare provider who treats you. Most side effects can be controlled, and your stem cell transplant physician has the expertise to manage them and make them tolerable.

How long will I be in the hospital?

A hospital stay is typically two to four weeks, depending on the type of transplant. Some types of transplant can be done entirely as an outpatient, with no hospital stay. Your team recommends the setting that fits your health and condition.

When can I return to work or school?

An adult or a child may need to wait up to a year. It can take up to 12 months for the immune system to return to normal after a transplant, and your specialists help you decide when it is safe to go back.

Can children receive a bone marrow transplant?

Yes, children can have this procedure. Our cancer experts evaluate each child to make sure a transplant is a good fit.

About this module

Template module · Written copy, from today's FAQ and what to expect pages. The side effects answer keeps the live page's two risks of donor cells (rejection and graft-versus-host disease) and its list of common effects in full. The out-of-area lodging question is answered inside the Care in One Place card, with the live page's administration phone, (407) 498-3432.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Clinical Trials

A clinical trial can offer early access to a promising new medicine or treatment. Ask your transplant team whether one fits your diagnosis, and see the trials open at this program.

Find a Clinical Trial
About this module

Template module · A banner with this page's copy and one button, Find a Clinical Trial, already narrowed to this program's trials (the 2026-10-28 review call: a banner on an overview page, never a list). No trial and no trial count is typed here. Today's program page mentions that its laboratory supports immunotherapy clinical trials, and it has no clinical trials page of its own; the corporate clinical trials page serves it, like every institute's.

Awards and Accreditations

‹
[Award logo 1]
[Award logo 2]
[Award logo 3]
[Award logo 4]
[Award logo 5]
›

Patient Resources

[Patient Resource 01][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 02][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 03][One line on what it is]Download Resource
[Patient Resource 04][One line on what it is]Download Resource

Content Hub | View All

About this module

Template modules · All fill themselves. Nothing is supplied. The one accreditation the live pages state is FACT accreditation, named in Who We Are above. The live program page's "Trusted. Nationally Recognized." heading has no text or source beneath it, so no recognition claim is made. The program has no patient resources page of its own today; the institute's support services (integrative medicine, nutrition, counseling and the nurse navigators) reach the page through the institute's resources. The Content Hub article on how bone marrow transplants save lives is a candidate for the Articles set, and the set fills itself from the library.

Draft copy prepared by Marketing Technology, 2026-10-29.

Cancer

The program gives stem cell transplants and cellular therapy for blood cancers and some blood disorders.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists test your blood and bone marrow before a transplant and check your recovery after it.

Learn More About Pathology

View All Service Lines

About this module

Fills itself from the records. A program belongs to no single service line (Kim, 2026-10-20), so the cards are the program's own assortment: the lines it works with and the library pages tied to its subject, never one line's lists.

Conditions

Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system,...

Learn More About Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow...

Learn More About Post-Mastectomy Pain
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma

View All Conditions

Treatments

Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

Learn More About Breast Reconstruction
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy

View All Treatments

Ready to Get Started?

Request an appointment and the team will call you to schedule.

Request an Appointment

Cancer Programs

The programs on this line, each bringing a team together around one condition, one approach to care or one group of patients. Each page explains who it is for, what it offers and where.

Search by First Letter

Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum or in the anus. It ends with a permanent colostomy, an opening on the belly for stool. Many people return to work, travel and the activities they enjoy.

Learn More
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar and stress. It is rare, and most growths found in these glands are not cancer. Endocrine specialists, surgeons and oncologists work together to find it and treat it, most often with surgery.

Learn More
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to HPV, a common virus. Because it forms where a doctor can see and reach it, it is often found early, and most people are treated without surgery.

Learn More
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes often clear on their own, and high-grade changes can be found with screening and treated in the office before they ever become cancer.

Learn More
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few minutes, needs no sedation, and helps find the cause of bleeding, pain, itching or a lump.

Learn More
Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for appendicitis and sometimes to treat or confirm a tumor of the appendix. Most are done through small incisions, and you can live a full, healthy life without an appendix.

Learn More
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are found during surgery for appendicitis. Some grow slowly, and Orlando Health care teams treat them with surgery, chemotherapy and, for some people, HIPEC.

Learn More
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat the bowel so it shows clearly on X-rays. It takes about 30 to 60 minutes and needs no sedation.

Learn More
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of esophageal cancer, though most people with it never develop cancer. Regular checks and treatment of early changes keep that risk low.

Learn More
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp, and very rarely spreads. Treated early, usually with a short office procedure, it is almost always cured.

Learn More
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for certain whether an area is cancer, and most biopsies are quick, done with numbing medicine, and let you go home the same day.

Learn More
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine. Most bladder cancers are found before they grow into the bladder wall, when they respond well to treatment.

Learn More
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy blood-forming cells, from you or a donor. It is used for some leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma and other blood and immune conditions, and for some, it offers a chance of cure.

Learn More
Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program

Bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy, with evaluation, treatment and follow-up care in downtown Orlando.

Learn More
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can cause pain and weaken the bone. Treatments can ease pain, protect the bone and slow the cancer, and many people live with it for years.

Learn More
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or repairing. It can find cancer that has spread to the bones and other bone problems, and most of the appointment is waiting while the tracer reaches the bones.

Learn More
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and many are not. They are cared for by teams of neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists and radiation oncologists who plan each person's treatment together.

Learn More
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly. They are treated with surgery, radiation and medicine, often in combination, by teams of brain surgeons, cancer doctors and radiation specialists working together.

Learn More
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that you or your doctor felt. Most are done with a needle and numbing medicine, and most biopsies find no cancer.

Learn More
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers, and found early it is among the most treatable. Orlando Health care teams screen for it, diagnose it and treat it, with nurse navigators to guide you.

Learn More
Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average risk start at age 40. Your age, family history and breast density decide how often you go and whether you need more than a mammogram.

Learn More
Breast Care Center

Breast cancer specialists, breast imaging and reconstructive surgery in Orlando, Winter Park, Clermont, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant, tissue from your own body or both. It can happen at the same time as cancer surgery or months or years later, and whether to have it is your choice.

Learn More
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and numbness. Most cancer pain can be eased with the right mix of medicines, procedures and support, and telling your care team about it is the first step.

Learn More
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer treatment. Physical, occupational and speech therapists work with you on tiredness, weakness, pain, swelling, swallowing and the everyday tasks that cancer and its treatment can make harder.

Learn More
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often the main treatment for cancers that have not spread, and it is usually planned with chemotherapy, radiation or other treatment. Many operations are done through small incisions.

Learn More
Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and when it does happen, finding it early means it can often be treated while your cancer care goes on. Oncologists and cardiologists watch for it together.

Learn More
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused by HPV, and screening finds changes years before they become cancer. Orlando Health care teams screen for it, diagnose it and treat it at every stage.

Learn More
Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become cancer. Most people start at 21 or 25 and are tested every three to five years until 65.

Learn More
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with rest in between, and can be used to cure a cancer, shrink it before surgery, lower the chance it returns or ease symptoms. Side effects can be managed.

Learn More
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to remove colon cancer or disease that keeps coming back. Many colectomies are done through small incisions, and most people go back to eating and living normally.

Learn More
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find polyps and remove them before they turn into cancer. Found early, colon cancer is very treatable, and Orlando Health care teams screen for it and treat it.

Learn More
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually asleep or sedated, it takes less than an hour, and polyps can be removed during the same test.

Learn More
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at average risk start at 45, and you can choose between a colonoscopy and simpler tests you do at home.

Learn More
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless, though some can turn into cancer over many years. A colonoscopy finds them and removes them, and Orlando Health care teams offer screening and polyp care.

Learn More
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the healthy ends again. Many operations are done through small incisions, and your surgeon plans the approach around your body, your diagnosis and your goals.

Learn More
Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool leaves the body into a pouch. It may be temporary while your bowel heals or permanent, and with practice most people return to work, travel, exercise and the foods they enjoy.

Learn More
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and painless, and it helps your care team find a problem, see its size and location, plan treatment and check how treatment is working.

Learn More
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in hormone-making cells spread through the body. Thyroid cancer is the most common, and most are very treatable. Each type has its own signs and tests, and surgery is often the first treatment.

Learn More
Endocrine Cancer Center

Thyroid, adrenal, parathyroid and neuroendocrine cancer specialists in Ocoee, with surgical and nonsurgical care.

Learn More
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most common early sign is food that feels stuck when you swallow. Treatment often combines chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, planned by one team.

Learn More
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound with stitches. It is usually done in the office with numbing medicine, you go home the same day, and the tissue is checked under a microscope.

Learn More
Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often found after gallbladder surgery for gallstones. Orlando Health care teams diagnose it and treat it with surgery, medicine and radiation.

Learn More
Gastrointestinal Cancer Center

Colon, rectal, liver, pancreatic and stomach cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for you, and what the result would mean. A genetic counselor reviews your family history, explains your options and helps you plan screening or prevention.

Learn More
Gynecologic Cancer Center

Gynecologic oncologists caring for ovarian, cervical, uterine, vaginal and vulvar cancers in Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

Learn More
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva. Each type has its own signs, tests and treatments. Gynecologic oncologists treat all of them, with surgery, radiation and medicines, and with care to protect fertility when possible.

Learn More
Head and Neck Cancer Center

Head and neck cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden, with free screening.

Learn More
Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds the parts of the mouth, jaw, throat, face or neck removed during cancer surgery. Surgeons often move skin, muscle or bone from another part of your body to restore how you eat, swallow, speak and breathe, and to bring back your appearance as closely as they can.

Learn More
Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of cancer before you notice symptoms. It takes a few minutes and involves no needles. It is most useful for people who use tobacco or alcohol, and it is never a substitute for checking a symptom.

Learn More
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head and neck. Tobacco, alcohol and HPV are the main causes of many of them. Specialist teams combine surgery, radiation and medicines, with care to protect speaking, swallowing and appearance.

Learn More
Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its full size within a few months, so many people can have a large part removed safely. It can be done through small incisions or one larger one, and recovery takes a few weeks.

Learn More
HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon first removes all the tumor that can be seen, then bathes the inside of the abdomen with heated chemotherapy during the same operation. It is a major operation for carefully chosen patients.

Learn More
Histotripsy

Histotripsy uses focused pulses of sound, sent from outside your body, to break apart a tumor in the liver. There are no incisions, no needles and no radiation. You are asleep for it, it often takes about an hour, and many people go home the same day.

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Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It treats many breast and prostate cancers and some uterine cancers, given as pills or shots, often for years, to shrink a cancer, slow it or help keep it from returning.

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and treats many cancers, including melanoma, lung, kidney, bladder and some breast cancers. Its side effects differ from chemotherapy and need prompt attention.

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Integrative Medicine Program

Yoga, art, music, acupuncture, massage and support groups that ease stress and side effects during and after cancer care.

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Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system, and each has many types. Hematologist-oncologists, doctors who specialize in blood diseases and cancer, diagnose and treat them.

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Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Specialists in leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma and blood disorders, in downtown Orlando, Ocoee and Lake Mary.

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Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a liver already scarred by hepatitis, alcohol or fatty liver disease. Found early, it can often be removed or destroyed, and many other treatments can control it when it cannot.

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Liver Cancer Center

Fellowship-trained physicians for primary and secondary liver cancer, including histotripsy, in downtown Orlando.

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Liver Transplant

A liver transplant replaces a liver that no longer works, or one with early cancer, with a healthy liver from a donor. It is a major operation with a careful evaluation beforehand, and most people who receive one go on to live active lives for many years.

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Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep most of your breast. Most people go home the same day, and radiation therapy usually follows to treat any cancer cells left in the breast.

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Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or treated with the goal of cure, and yearly screening helps find it early in people at higher risk. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists and lung specialists plan care together.

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Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history. It takes a few minutes, needs no needles or dye, and can find lung cancer early, when it is most treatable.

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Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old infection or inflammation and are not cancer. Lung specialists decide whether a nodule needs no follow-up, another scan or a biopsy.

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Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see whether cancer has spread to them. The result helps set the stage of the cancer and guides the rest of your treatment.

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Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after cancer surgery or radiation. A trained therapist uses gentle massage, wraps, compression garments, exercise and skin care, and teaches you to manage it at home.

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Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen lymph node. There are two main kinds, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin, and many types within them. Many lymphomas respond well to treatment, and some can be cured.

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Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes about 20 minutes, and most results are normal. If you are asked to come back for more pictures, that is common.

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Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk of breast cancer. Many people go home the same day or after one night, and you can choose reconstruction now, later or not at all.

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Mediastinal Surgery

Mediastinal surgery reaches the space in the middle of your chest, between the lungs, to take a tissue sample or remove a growth such as a thymus tumor or a cyst. Many of these operations are done through small incisions, and recovery from a minimally invasive operation often takes three to four weeks.

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Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and more likely to spread, so early detection matters. Found early, it is usually cured with surgery, and newer medicines help many people with advanced melanoma.

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Melanoma and Skin Cancer

Dermatology, surgery and oncology specialists for melanoma and skin cancer in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

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Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For most melanomas found early, surgery is the main treatment and is often the only one needed. Most people go home the same day.

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Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no cancer remains. It saves as much healthy skin as possible, which matters most on the face, and it takes place in the office with numbing medicine.

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Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which treatments are most likely to work for you, such as a targeted medicine or immunotherapy, and which ones you may be able to skip, such as chemotherapy.

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It helps find a growth, shows its size and where it is, and checks how treatment is working. You lie still in a scanner for 30 to 60 minutes.

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MUGA Scan

A MUGA scan measures how well your heart pumps blood. A small amount of tracer is added to your blood, and a camera takes pictures of your heart as it beats. It is often done before and during cancer treatments that can affect the heart, to keep your heart safe.

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Navigational Bronchoscopy

Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built from your CT scan, so a doctor can take a small tissue sample. It needs no incision, and most people go home the same day.

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Neuro-Oncology Center

Brain and spinal cord tumor specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips and Ocoee who plan your care together.

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Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost anywhere, most often in the intestines, pancreas, appendix, rectum and lungs. Many grow slowly, some make hormones that cause symptoms, and most can be treated or controlled for a long time.

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Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or feeling full fast, are easy to mistake for everyday problems, so a change that lasts deserves a check. Orlando Health gynecologic oncologists diagnose and treat it.

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Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer starts in the cells of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps you digest food and control blood sugar. It often causes few signs early on, so a fast, clear plan matters. Treatment combines surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, chosen for where the tumor is and how far it reaches.

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Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very rare, and most problems with these glands are not cancer. The usual first sign is a high calcium level. Surgery to remove the gland and the tissue around it is the main treatment.

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Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in skin color. Found early, it can often be treated in ways that keep the penis and how it works.

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Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis means cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the thin lining of the belly. It most often comes from cancers of the appendix, colon, stomach or ovary. Treatment depends on where it started, and Orlando Health care teams offer medicine and, for some people, surgery with HIPEC.

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Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow a mastectomy or a lumpectomy. It is common, it has a cause, and medicines, therapy and procedures can ease it.

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Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer in men after skin cancer. Most prostate cancers grow slowly, and when found early, many men have several good choices for care.

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Prostate Cancer Center

Prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, from active surveillance to robotic surgery and precise radiation.

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Prostate Cancer Screening

Prostate cancer screening checks for prostate cancer before you have symptoms, most often with a PSA blood test. Whether and when to start is a choice you make with your doctor, usually in your 50s, or earlier if you are Black or prostate cancer runs in your family.

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Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at the tumor and very little beyond it, which can lower the dose to healthy tissue nearby. It is used for some cancers in children and adults, often near sensitive organs.

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so they stop growing. Most forms treat only the area they are aimed at. It can be used to cure a cancer, alongside surgery or medicines, or to ease pain and other symptoms.

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Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and releases tiny beads that hold radiation straight into the tumor. It needs only a small nick in the skin, and most people go home the same day.

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Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it before it starts. Treatment often combines medicine, radiation and surgery, and Orlando Health care teams plan each step with you to protect bowel control where they can.

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Rectal Spacers

A rectal spacer is a soft gel placed between the prostate and the rectum before radiation for prostate cancer. It moves the rectum a little farther from the radiation to help protect it. Placement is a short outpatient procedure, and your body absorbs the gel on its own over several months.

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Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center

Lung, esophageal and chest cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

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Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage or bone. It often shows up as a lump that grows over weeks or months. Teams that include surgeons, oncologists and radiation oncologists plan its care together.

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Sarcoma

Bone and soft tissue cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee who plan your care together.

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Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of your colon for polyps, cancer and other changes. It needs only a simple bowel prep, and most people have it without sedation.

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Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is the most common cancer in the United States, and when it is found early, nearly every case can be treated successfully, often with a short procedure in the office.

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Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as it should and looks as natural as possible. It ranges from a few stitches to moving skin from nearby or another part of the body.

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Skin Cancer Screening

A skin cancer screening is a head-to-toe look at your skin for spots that could be cancer. It takes a few minutes, needs no needles unless a spot needs testing, and pairs with checking your own skin each month to find changes early.

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Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many start as cancer elsewhere that has spread to the spine. Back pain is the most common sign. Orlando Health teams diagnose spinal tumors and treat them together.

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Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most often on skin that gets a lot of sun. Found early, it is very treatable, usually with a short procedure in the office.

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Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions instead of several weeks. It treats some early lung and prostate cancers, some tumors of the liver, pancreas and spine, and tumors that have spread, without an incision or a hospital stay.

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Stomach Cancer

Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, starts in the lining of the stomach. Its early signs, like indigestion or feeling full fast, are easy to miss, so a lasting change deserves a check. Orlando Health care teams find it, stage it and treat it with medicine and surgery.

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Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection

Submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection, or STER, removes a tumor from deep in the wall of the esophagus or stomach using a flexible scope passed through the mouth. There is no cut on the skin, and most people stay in the hospital for a day or two.

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Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only when your cancer has that target, so a test of your tumor comes first. Many targeted medicines are pills taken at home, and others are given by infusion.

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Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to 40. It is also one of the most treatable cancers: most men are cured, often with surgery alone, and go on to have children and full lives.

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Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall and the lining around the lungs. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists and lung and digestive specialists care for them together.

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Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or on a scan for something else. Most thyroid cancers grow slowly and are very treatable, and surgery is the main treatment, sometimes followed by radioactive iodine.

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Thyroid Nodules

A thyroid nodule is a lump in the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. Nodules are very common, and most are harmless. An ultrasound and sometimes a needle biopsy tell which few need treatment. Many only need watching, and those that cause symptoms can be shrunk or removed.

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Trachelectomy

A trachelectomy removes the cervix while keeping the uterus, so a person treated for small, early cervical cancer may still be able to have a baby. Gynecologic oncologists perform it, often through small incisions.

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Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It needs no large incision, many people go home the same day, and it can treat small tumors in the liver, kidney, lung, bone and other organs when surgery is not the best choice.

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Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor through a thin tube placed in an artery at the groin or wrist. It is most often used for liver tumors, and it can also make some tumors safer to remove with surgery.

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Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most often used to track how well cancer treatment is working and to watch for cancer coming back. A high result on its own does not mean you have cancer.

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Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your own tumor, grown into billions in a lab and returned to your body through an IV to attack the cancer. It involves surgery, a hospital stay and close care from a specialized team.

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Urologic Cancer Center

Bladder, kidney, penile and testicular cancer care, with robotic surgery, in Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

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Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male reproductive organs: the prostate, testicles and penis. Each type has its own signs, tests and treatments, and urologists and oncologists treat all of them.

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Urostomy

A urostomy is surgery that makes a new way for urine to leave your body when the bladder has been removed or can no longer work. Urine drains through a small opening on the belly, called a stoma, into a flat pouch you empty several times a day.

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Uterine Cancer

Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that is not normal for you, especially after menopause, so it is often found early. Orlando Health gynecologic oncologists diagnose and treat every type.

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Cancer Conditions

The cancers our specialists diagnose and treat, from the most common to the rare, grouped by the part of the body they affect. Each page explains the cancer, its signs and how it is treated, and who cares for it near you.

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Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum or in the anus. It ends with a permanent colostomy, an opening on the belly for stool. Many people return to work, travel and the activities they enjoy.

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Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar and stress. It is rare, and most growths found in these glands are not cancer. Endocrine specialists, surgeons and oncologists work together to find it and treat it, most often with surgery.

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Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to HPV, a common virus. Because it forms where a doctor can see and reach it, it is often found early, and most people are treated without surgery.

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Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes often clear on their own, and high-grade changes can be found with screening and treated in the office before they ever become cancer.

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Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few minutes, needs no sedation, and helps find the cause of bleeding, pain, itching or a lump.

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Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for appendicitis and sometimes to treat or confirm a tumor of the appendix. Most are done through small incisions, and you can live a full, healthy life without an appendix.

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Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are found during surgery for appendicitis. Some grow slowly, and Orlando Health care teams treat them with surgery, chemotherapy and, for some people, HIPEC.

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Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat the bowel so it shows clearly on X-rays. It takes about 30 to 60 minutes and needs no sedation.

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Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of esophageal cancer, though most people with it never develop cancer. Regular checks and treatment of early changes keep that risk low.

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Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp, and very rarely spreads. Treated early, usually with a short office procedure, it is almost always cured.

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for certain whether an area is cancer, and most biopsies are quick, done with numbing medicine, and let you go home the same day.

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Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine. Most bladder cancers are found before they grow into the bladder wall, when they respond well to treatment.

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Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy blood-forming cells, from you or a donor. It is used for some leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma and other blood and immune conditions, and for some, it offers a chance of cure.

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Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program

Bone marrow transplant and cellular therapy, with evaluation, treatment and follow-up care in downtown Orlando.

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Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can cause pain and weaken the bone. Treatments can ease pain, protect the bone and slow the cancer, and many people live with it for years.

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Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or repairing. It can find cancer that has spread to the bones and other bone problems, and most of the appointment is waiting while the tracer reaches the bones.

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Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and many are not. They are cared for by teams of neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists and radiation oncologists who plan each person's treatment together.

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Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly. They are treated with surgery, radiation and medicine, often in combination, by teams of brain surgeons, cancer doctors and radiation specialists working together.

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Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that you or your doctor felt. Most are done with a needle and numbing medicine, and most biopsies find no cancer.

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Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers, and found early it is among the most treatable. Orlando Health care teams screen for it, diagnose it and treat it, with nurse navigators to guide you.

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Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average risk start at age 40. Your age, family history and breast density decide how often you go and whether you need more than a mammogram.

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Breast Care Center

Breast cancer specialists, breast imaging and reconstructive surgery in Orlando, Winter Park, Clermont, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

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Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant, tissue from your own body or both. It can happen at the same time as cancer surgery or months or years later, and whether to have it is your choice.

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Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and numbness. Most cancer pain can be eased with the right mix of medicines, procedures and support, and telling your care team about it is the first step.

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Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer treatment. Physical, occupational and speech therapists work with you on tiredness, weakness, pain, swelling, swallowing and the everyday tasks that cancer and its treatment can make harder.

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Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often the main treatment for cancers that have not spread, and it is usually planned with chemotherapy, radiation or other treatment. Many operations are done through small incisions.

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Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and when it does happen, finding it early means it can often be treated while your cancer care goes on. Oncologists and cardiologists watch for it together.

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Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused by HPV, and screening finds changes years before they become cancer. Orlando Health care teams screen for it, diagnose it and treat it at every stage.

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Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become cancer. Most people start at 21 or 25 and are tested every three to five years until 65.

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with rest in between, and can be used to cure a cancer, shrink it before surgery, lower the chance it returns or ease symptoms. Side effects can be managed.

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Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to remove colon cancer or disease that keeps coming back. Many colectomies are done through small incisions, and most people go back to eating and living normally.

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find polyps and remove them before they turn into cancer. Found early, colon cancer is very treatable, and Orlando Health care teams screen for it and treat it.

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Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually asleep or sedated, it takes less than an hour, and polyps can be removed during the same test.

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Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at average risk start at 45, and you can choose between a colonoscopy and simpler tests you do at home.

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Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless, though some can turn into cancer over many years. A colonoscopy finds them and removes them, and Orlando Health care teams offer screening and polyp care.

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Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the healthy ends again. Many operations are done through small incisions, and your surgeon plans the approach around your body, your diagnosis and your goals.

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Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool leaves the body into a pouch. It may be temporary while your bowel heals or permanent, and with practice most people return to work, travel, exercise and the foods they enjoy.

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and painless, and it helps your care team find a problem, see its size and location, plan treatment and check how treatment is working.

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Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in hormone-making cells spread through the body. Thyroid cancer is the most common, and most are very treatable. Each type has its own signs and tests, and surgery is often the first treatment.

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Endocrine Cancer Center

Thyroid, adrenal, parathyroid and neuroendocrine cancer specialists in Ocoee, with surgical and nonsurgical care.

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Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most common early sign is food that feels stuck when you swallow. Treatment often combines chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, planned by one team.

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Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound with stitches. It is usually done in the office with numbing medicine, you go home the same day, and the tissue is checked under a microscope.

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Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often found after gallbladder surgery for gallstones. Orlando Health care teams diagnose it and treat it with surgery, medicine and radiation.

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Gastrointestinal Cancer Center

Colon, rectal, liver, pancreatic and stomach cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for you, and what the result would mean. A genetic counselor reviews your family history, explains your options and helps you plan screening or prevention.

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Gynecologic Cancer Center

Gynecologic oncologists caring for ovarian, cervical, uterine, vaginal and vulvar cancers in Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.

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Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva. Each type has its own signs, tests and treatments. Gynecologic oncologists treat all of them, with surgery, radiation and medicines, and with care to protect fertility when possible.

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Head and Neck Cancer Center

Head and neck cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden, with free screening.

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Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds the parts of the mouth, jaw, throat, face or neck removed during cancer surgery. Surgeons often move skin, muscle or bone from another part of your body to restore how you eat, swallow, speak and breathe, and to bring back your appearance as closely as they can.

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Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of cancer before you notice symptoms. It takes a few minutes and involves no needles. It is most useful for people who use tobacco or alcohol, and it is never a substitute for checking a symptom.

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Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head and neck. Tobacco, alcohol and HPV are the main causes of many of them. Specialist teams combine surgery, radiation and medicines, with care to protect speaking, swallowing and appearance.

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Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its full size within a few months, so many people can have a large part removed safely. It can be done through small incisions or one larger one, and recovery takes a few weeks.

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HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon first removes all the tumor that can be seen, then bathes the inside of the abdomen with heated chemotherapy during the same operation. It is a major operation for carefully chosen patients.

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Histotripsy

Histotripsy uses focused pulses of sound, sent from outside your body, to break apart a tumor in the liver. There are no incisions, no needles and no radiation. You are asleep for it, it often takes about an hour, and many people go home the same day.

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Hormone Therapy

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Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see whether cancer has spread to them. The result helps set the stage of the cancer and guides the rest of your treatment.

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Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after cancer surgery or radiation. A trained therapist uses gentle massage, wraps, compression garments, exercise and skin care, and teaches you to manage it at home.

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Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen lymph node. There are two main kinds, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin, and many types within them. Many lymphomas respond well to treatment, and some can be cured.

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Brain and spinal cord tumor specialists in downtown Orlando, Dr. Phillips and Ocoee who plan your care together.

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Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very rare, and most problems with these glands are not cancer. The usual first sign is a high calcium level. Surgery to remove the gland and the tissue around it is the main treatment.

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Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center

Lung, esophageal and chest cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

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Skin Cancer

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Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

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Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to 40. It is also one of the most treatable cancers: most men are cured, often with surgery alone, and go on to have children and full lives.

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Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall and the lining around the lungs. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists and lung and digestive specialists care for them together.

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Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or on a scan for something else. Most thyroid cancers grow slowly and are very treatable, and surgery is the main treatment, sometimes followed by radioactive iodine.

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Thyroid Nodules

A thyroid nodule is a lump in the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. Nodules are very common, and most are harmless. An ultrasound and sometimes a needle biopsy tell which few need treatment. Many only need watching, and those that cause symptoms can be shrunk or removed.

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Trachelectomy

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Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It needs no large incision, many people go home the same day, and it can treat small tumors in the liver, kidney, lung, bone and other organs when surgery is not the best choice.

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Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor through a thin tube placed in an artery at the groin or wrist. It is most often used for liver tumors, and it can also make some tumors safer to remove with surgery.

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Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most often used to track how well cancer treatment is working and to watch for cancer coming back. A high result on its own does not mean you have cancer.

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Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your own tumor, grown into billions in a lab and returned to your body through an IV to attack the cancer. It involves surgery, a hospital stay and close care from a specialized team.

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Urologic Cancer Center

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Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male reproductive organs: the prostate, testicles and penis. Each type has its own signs, tests and treatments, and urologists and oncologists treat all of them.

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Urostomy

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Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that is not normal for you, especially after menopause, so it is often found early. Orlando Health gynecologic oncologists diagnose and treat every type.

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Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar and stress. It is rare, and most growths found in these glands are not cancer. Endocrine specialists, surgeons and oncologists work together to find it and treat it, most often with surgery.

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This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
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  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
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Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

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Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
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Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

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Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

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RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

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Decided 2026-10-21

You may be reading this because a scan for something else showed a spot on an adrenal gland, or because months of high blood pressure, weight gain or changes in your body led your doctor to test your hormones. Either way, the words "adrenal tumor" bring a lot of questions, and the first one is usually whether it is cancer.

Most adrenal growths are benign, which means they are not cancer. Doctors find them often now that scans are common, and many need nothing more than a hormone test and a follow-up scan. Adrenal cancer itself is rare. When it is found while it is still inside the gland, surgery to remove it gives the best chance of a cure.

This page explains what the adrenal glands do, the signs adrenal cancer can cause, how doctors tell a benign growth from a cancer, and the treatments available.

What Is Adrenal Cancer?

You have two adrenal glands, one on top of each kidney. Each is small and shaped like a triangle. The outer layer, the cortex, makes cortisol, aldosterone and small amounts of sex hormones. The inner part, the medulla, makes adrenaline. Together these hormones help control blood pressure, blood sugar, salt balance and how your body reacts to stress.

Adrenal cancer is named for the part of the gland where it starts:

  • Adrenocortical carcinoma starts in the cortex. It is what most doctors mean by adrenal cancer. It is rare, affecting about one or two people in a million each year, and it is found most often in children under 5 and in adults in their 40s and 50s.
  • Pheochromocytoma starts in the medulla. Most are benign, though a small share can spread. Learn more about the wider group on the endocrine cancer page.
  • Neuroblastoma is a childhood cancer that often starts in the adrenal gland. It is treated by pediatric cancer teams.

About half of adrenocortical carcinomas are functional, which means they make extra hormones. The rest are nonfunctional and are often found when they grow large enough to press on nearby organs, or by chance on a scan.

Cancer can also spread to the adrenal glands from other places, such as the lung. That is treated as the original cancer.

Symptoms of Adrenal Cancer

Signs depend on whether the tumor makes hormones, and which ones.

  • Too much cortisol (Cushing syndrome): weight gain in the face, neck and belly, thin arms and legs, purple stretch marks, easy bruising, high blood pressure and high blood sugar.
  • Too much aldosterone: high blood pressure that is hard to control, muscle cramps and low potassium.
  • Too many male hormones in women: new hair on the face or body, a deeper voice, acne or periods that stop.
  • Too many female hormones in men: breast tissue that grows, or lower sex drive.
  • Too much adrenaline, with a pheochromocytoma: spells of pounding heartbeat, sweating, headache and very high blood pressure.
  • A tumor pressing on nearby organs: pain in the belly, side or back, feeling full quickly, or a lump you can feel.

Children may show early signs of puberty. Many of these signs have common causes, so testing is what tells them apart.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • A sudden, severe headache with a pounding heartbeat and heavy sweating.
  • Fainting, a seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Severe weakness, vomiting and dizziness while you take steroid pills after adrenal surgery, especially if you cannot keep your pills down.
  • Sudden, severe pain in the belly, side or back.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Blood pressure readings much higher than your usual numbers.
  • Nausea, poor appetite or tiredness that is new or getting worse.
  • Muscle cramps or twitching that keep coming back.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision after surgery.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer begins when changes in a cell's DNA let it grow out of control. For most people, what causes those changes is unknown, and no habit or exposure has been shown to cause it. A small share of cases come from an inherited gene change passed down in a family, which is why the age pattern includes young children.

Risk Factors for Adrenal Cancer

Most people with adrenal cancer have no known risk factor. Inherited conditions linked to a higher chance include:

  • Li-Fraumeni syndrome.
  • Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, in children.
  • Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1.
  • Lynch syndrome.
  • Carney complex.
  • Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2, Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome and neurofibromatosis type 1, linked with pheochromocytoma.

Having one of these conditions does not mean you will develop adrenal cancer. It may mean regular checks, planned with your doctor.

Diagnosis of Adrenal Cancer

Diagnosis starts with a physical exam and a detailed history of your health and your family's. Your doctor will ask about changes that could come from hormones, such as weight gain, blood pressure or mood.

  • Blood and urine tests measure cortisol, aldosterone, sex hormones and the substances adrenaline breaks down into. Some tests are timed, such as a night-time saliva test or a test after a dose of a steroid pill.
  • Imaging. A CT scan or MRI shows the size of the growth, how dense it is and whether it has spread. Size and appearance help tell a benign growth from a cancer. A PET/CT scan may also be used.
  • Biopsy. A needle biopsy is used less often for adrenal tumors, because the full tumor taken out at surgery gives the clearest answer. A pheochromocytoma is always ruled out with blood or urine tests first.
  • Genetic counseling may be offered to look for an inherited condition, which can matter for your relatives too.

Treatment Options for Adrenal Cancer

Your plan depends on the type of tumor, its size, whether it makes hormones and whether it has spread.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery to remove the whole adrenal gland, called adrenalectomy, is the main treatment and the one most likely to cure the cancer. A small tumor may be removed through several small incisions, sometimes with robotic surgery. A larger tumor that may be cancer is often removed through one larger incision, so it comes out whole along with nearby lymph nodes. Learn more about cancer surgery. When cancer has spread, removing tumors elsewhere or tumor ablation can help control it.

Medicines

  • Mitotane is a pill made for adrenocortical carcinoma. It is often taken after surgery to lower the chance the cancer returns, and for cancer that has spread.
  • Chemotherapy, often a combination given with mitotane, treats cancer that has spread.
  • Hormone-blocking medicines ease symptoms from extra cortisol, aldosterone or adrenaline.
  • Steroid replacement pills replace the hormones your body needs after surgery or while you take mitotane.

Radiation

Radiation therapy may be used after surgery to the area where the tumor was, or to ease pain from cancer that has spread.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Adrenal Cancer

After treatment, you will have scans and hormone tests on a regular schedule, often every few months at first, because adrenocortical carcinoma can return. If you take mitotane, blood tests check its level and side effects. If you take steroid replacement pills, learn how to take an extra dose when you are sick, and keep a card in your wallet or wear a bracelet that says you take them. Keeping a log of your blood pressure, weight and energy helps your team see changes early. Integrative medicine and support groups help you and your family cope.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team when a symptom returns or a new one starts, and before any other surgery or dental work, since you may need extra steroid medicine. Bring your medicine list, your blood pressure log and your questions: whether the tumor makes hormones, whether it was removed completely, what your scan schedule is and how to manage steroid pills when you are ill.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is every adrenal tumor cancer?

No. Most adrenal growths are benign. Hormone tests and a scan usually tell your doctor which ones need surgery and which only need a later check.

Can I live with one adrenal gland?

Yes. The other gland usually makes all the hormones you need. Some people take steroid pills for a while after surgery until it catches up.

Why would I need steroid pills?

After surgery, or while you take mitotane, your body may not make enough cortisol. The pills replace it, and your team tells you how to adjust them when you are sick.

Will my blood pressure go back to normal?

When a tumor was making extra hormones, blood pressure and other symptoms often improve after it is removed. Some people still need blood pressure medicine.

Should my children be tested?

Ask about genetic counseling, especially if the cancer was found at a young age or others in your family have had cancer. A result can guide their checkups.

Who Treats It and Where

Adrenal cancer is treated by endocrinologists, endocrine and surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, radiologists and radiation oncologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Endocrine Cancer Center treats cancers of the adrenal, thyroid and parathyroid glands with a team of fellowship-trained endocrinologists, surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses. Care includes hormone tests, imaging, biopsy, genetic testing, minimally invasive surgery, radiation therapy and medicines. It sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
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Surgeons and oncologists remove adrenal tumors and treat cancer that returns or spreads with mitotane and chemotherapy.

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Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Adrenocortical Carcinoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/adrenocortical/patient/adrenocortical-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Adrenal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/adrenal-cancer.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/pheochromocytoma/patient/pheochromocytoma-treatment-pdq
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  5. MedlinePlus. Adrenal Gland Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/adrenalglandcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to HPV, a common virus. Because it forms where a doctor can see and reach it, it is often found early, and most people are treated without surgery.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Bleeding, pain or a lump near the anus can be embarrassing to talk about, and it is easy to put off. Most of the time these symptoms come from something minor, such as hemorrhoids. When the cause is anal cancer, it helps to know that treatment works well for most people and that most do not need a permanent colostomy.

Anal cancer begins when cells in the lining of the anal canal, or the skin just around the anus, grow out of control. Most anal cancers are squamous cell carcinomas, which start in the flat cells that line the canal. A long-lasting infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) causes most of them, often after years of slow changes in those cells, called anal dysplasia. Finding and treating those changes early can stop a cancer from forming.

The usual treatment combines radiation and chemotherapy, which can cure most anal cancers while keeping the muscles that control your bowels. This page covers the symptoms, causes, diagnosis and treatment of anal cancer, and life afterward.

What Is Anal Cancer?

The anal canal is the short tube at the end of the rectum that stool passes through as it leaves the body. Muscles around it, called sphincters, let you control when you have a bowel movement. Anal cancer forms in the lining of this canal or in the skin around its opening.

  • Squamous cell carcinoma is by far the most common type, and it is the type this page describes.
  • Adenocarcinoma starts in gland cells and is treated more like rectal cancer.
  • Rarer types, such as melanoma and neuroendocrine tumors, can also form here and are treated differently.

Anal cancer is uncommon, much less common than colon or rectal cancer, and most often diagnosed after age 55. The number of new cases has been rising slowly over recent decades.

Symptoms of Anal Cancer

Some anal cancers cause no symptoms at first. When symptoms appear, they can include:

  • Bleeding from the anus or rectum, often the first sign.
  • Pain, pressure or a feeling of fullness in the anal area.
  • A lump or growth at or near the anus.
  • Itching that does not go away.
  • Discharge of mucus or pus.
  • Changes in bowel habits, such as narrower stools or straining.
  • Swollen lymph nodes in the groin.

These symptoms are much more often caused by hemorrhoids, fissures or infections. Still, any of them deserves a visit, and a doctor can usually look directly at the area.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Bleeding from the rectum that will not stop, or passing large amounts of blood or clots.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • New rectal bleeding, or bleeding that is more than you usually have.
  • Pain in the anal area that is getting worse or keeping you from sleeping.
  • Not being able to pass stool or gas for a day or more.
  • Diarrhea that keeps you from drinking enough fluids, or skin in the treatment area that blisters or opens.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Anal Cancer

Most anal cancers are caused by HPV, a very common virus passed through skin-to-skin sexual contact. The body clears most HPV infections on its own. When certain high-risk types of HPV, especially type 16, stay in the body for years, they can change the cells lining the anal canal. Those changes, anal dysplasia, can slowly become cancer. A weakened immune system makes it harder to clear HPV, which is why it raises the risk.

Risk Factors for Anal Cancer

You are more likely to develop anal cancer if you:

  • Have had a long-term HPV infection, or anal or genital warts.
  • Have had cervical, vulvar or vaginal cancer or precancer.
  • Are living with HIV.
  • Have a weakened immune system, such as after an organ transplant or from long-term medicines that suppress it.
  • Have had receptive anal sex or many sexual partners.
  • Smoke.
  • Are over 55.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get anal cancer, and some people with none do.

Prevention of Anal Cancer

  • The HPV vaccine protects against the HPV types that cause most anal cancers. It is recommended for preteens at 11 or 12 and can be given through age 26; some adults up to 45 may benefit after talking with their doctor.
  • Condoms lower, though do not remove, the chance of passing HPV.
  • Not smoking helps your body clear HPV.
  • Screening for higher-risk groups. People living with HIV, organ transplant recipients and people who have had vulvar, cervical or vaginal cancer or precancer can ask their doctor about anal cancer screening. It looks for anal dysplasia, which can be treated before it becomes cancer.

Diagnosis of Anal Cancer

Your doctor asks about your symptoms and health, then examines the area, including a digital rectal exam, in which a gloved finger checks for lumps. Then:

  • Anoscopy. A short, lighted tube lets the doctor see inside the anal canal. High-resolution anoscopy adds magnification.
  • Biopsy. A small piece of any abnormal area is removed and examined. This confirms whether it is cancer.
  • Imaging. An MRI of the pelvis shows the tumor's size and nearby lymph nodes. A CT scan or PET-CT scan checks whether it has spread.
  • Other tests. Your team may suggest an HIV test, since it changes how treatment is planned, and a colonoscopy to check the rest of the bowel.

These results set the stage, from I to IV, which guides treatment.

Treatment Options for Anal Cancer

Medicines and Radiation

For most anal cancers, the standard treatment is chemoradiation: radiation therapy given five days a week for several weeks, with chemotherapy given at the same time to make the radiation work better. It cures most anal cancers while keeping the sphincter muscles, so you keep normal bowel control. The tumor keeps shrinking for weeks to months after treatment ends, so your team checks it over time. For cancer that has spread or returned, chemotherapy and immunotherapy are options.

Procedures and Surgery

A very small tumor at the edge of the anus may be removed with a minor operation and need nothing more. When cancer remains or returns after chemoradiation, an abdominoperineal resection removes the anus and rectum and creates a permanent colostomy, an opening on the belly where stool leaves the body into a pouch. Most people treated for anal cancer never need this operation.

Clinical trials may be an option for some people, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists them. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Anal Cancer

During chemoradiation, the skin in the treatment area can become sore, and diarrhea and tiredness are common. Your team helps manage these, and they ease in the weeks after treatment. Afterward, some people have changes in bowel habits, sexual function or fertility, and there is help for each; ask about it. Follow-up exams of the anal canal, often every few months for the first two years, check that the cancer is gone and stays gone. Not smoking, staying active and eating well support your recovery.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new bleeding, pain, a lump, changes in bowel control or side effects you are struggling with. Bring your biopsy and scan reports and a list of your medicines. Ask what stage your cancer is, whether chemoradiation is the plan and why, how your skin and bowels will be cared for during treatment, and what follow-up will look like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is anal cancer curable?

Yes, for most people. Chemoradiation cures most anal cancers found before they spread to distant organs.

Will I need a colostomy?

Most people do not. Chemoradiation treats the cancer while keeping the muscles that control your bowels. A permanent colostomy is needed only if cancer remains or returns after treatment.

Is it the same as colon or rectal cancer?

No. Anal cancer starts in different cells, has a different main cause and is treated differently, most often without surgery.

I have hemorrhoids. Could it be cancer instead?

Most bleeding and itching come from hemorrhoids, but the symptoms can overlap. A doctor can examine you and tell the difference, so get any new or lasting symptoms checked.

Should my partner be tested for HPV?

There is no routine HPV test for partners outside of cervical screening. Your partner can talk with their own doctor about the HPV vaccine and any screening that fits their health.

Who Treats It and Where

Anal cancer is treated by colorectal surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Radiation oncology, infusion for chemotherapy, nurse navigators who focus on gastrointestinal cancers, and survivorship and support services.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion at offices in the Tampa Bay area.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health colorectal surgeons in St. Petersburg diagnose and treat anal cancer.
  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute colon and rectal surgeons evaluate and treat anal cancer.
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Cancer

Medical and radiation oncologists give chemoradiation, the usual treatment that keeps bowel control.

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Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons examine and biopsy the anal canal, and operate when cancer remains or returns.

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Conditions
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Rectal Cancer

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Melanoma

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Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Treatments
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Anal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/anal/patient/anal-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Anal Cancer Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Staging.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/anal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Anal Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/analcancer.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes often clear on their own, and high-grade changes can be found with screening and treated in the office before they ever become cancer.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Being told you have abnormal cells in the anus can be unsettling, and it raises questions that are hard to ask. The most important thing to know is that dysplasia is a change in cells and is not cancer. Many people with mild changes need only regular checks, and treating the more serious changes lowers the chance that cancer will ever form.

Anal dysplasia happens when a long-lasting infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) changes the cells that line the anal canal. Doctors grade the changes as low grade or high grade. You may also see them called anal intraepithelial neoplasia (AIN), or LSIL and HSIL, short for low-grade and high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. The idea is the same as abnormal cells found on a cervical Pap test, and the approach is much the same: find the changes, watch the mild ones and treat the serious ones.

This page explains what anal dysplasia is, who is most at risk, how it is found and treated, and how to lower your risk.

What Is Anal Dysplasia?

The anal canal is the short passage at the end of the bowel. Its lining is made of thin, flat cells. In anal dysplasia, some of those cells look abnormal under a microscope, but they have not grown into deeper tissue, which is what makes them precancer and not cancer.

  • Low-grade dysplasia (LSIL) is a mild change. It is common in people with HPV and often goes away as the body clears the virus. It rarely becomes cancer.
  • High-grade dysplasia (HSIL) is a more advanced change. It is less likely to go away on its own, and over years some cases can turn into anal cancer. Treating it lowers that risk.

Dysplasia can also form on the skin just around the anus, where it is called perianal dysplasia.

Symptoms of Anal Dysplasia

Most people with anal dysplasia have no symptoms at all, which is why screening matters for people at higher risk. When symptoms happen, they can include:

  • Itching or irritation around the anus.
  • Small bumps or warts in or near the anus.
  • Bleeding, such as blood on toilet paper.
  • Discomfort or pain, especially during bowel movements.

These are much more often caused by hemorrhoids, fissures or skin conditions, and a doctor can examine you to find the cause.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Bleeding from the rectum that will not stop, or passing large amounts of blood or clots.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Bleeding after an office treatment that soaks a pad or keeps coming back.
  • Pain after a treatment that your pain medicine does not ease.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher in the days after an office procedure.
  • A new lump or a sore at the anus that is growing.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Anal Dysplasia

HPV causes almost all anal dysplasia. HPV is a very common virus passed through skin-to-skin sexual contact, and most sexually active people have it at some point. Usually the immune system clears it within a year or two. When a high-risk type, especially HPV 16 or 18, stays in the body for a long time, it can change the cells lining the anus. A weakened immune system makes it harder to clear HPV, so changes are more likely and more likely to progress.

Risk Factors for Anal Dysplasia

You are more likely to have anal dysplasia if you:

  • Are living with HIV.
  • Have had an organ transplant or take medicines that weaken the immune system.
  • Have had cervical, vulvar or vaginal cancer or precancer, or HPV-related changes elsewhere.
  • Have had anal or genital warts.
  • Have had receptive anal sex or many sexual partners.
  • Smoke.

Men who have sex with men have a higher risk whether or not they are living with HIV. Having a risk factor does not mean you will develop dysplasia.

Prevention of Anal Dysplasia

  • The HPV vaccine protects against the HPV types behind most anal dysplasia and cancer. It is recommended at age 11 or 12 and through age 26; some adults up to 45 may benefit after talking with their doctor. It works best before any contact with HPV.
  • Condoms lower, though do not remove, the chance of passing HPV.
  • Not smoking helps your body clear HPV.
  • Screening for people at higher risk finds high-grade changes early, when they can be treated before cancer forms.

Diagnosis of Anal Dysplasia

Screening and diagnosis use a few steps:

  • A digital rectal exam, in which a gloved finger feels for lumps.
  • An anal Pap test, in which a swab collects cells from the anal canal for a lab to check. It may be done with an HPV test.
  • High-resolution anoscopy. If the Pap test shows abnormal cells, a doctor uses a small tube and a magnifying scope, with a mild vinegar solution that makes abnormal areas easier to see, to look closely at the lining.
  • Biopsy. Tiny samples from any abnormal areas confirm the grade.

There is no single schedule for everyone. How often you are screened depends on your risk group and your results, and your doctor will set a plan for you.

Treatment Options for Anal Dysplasia

Monitoring

Low-grade dysplasia usually needs no treatment. Your doctor checks it with repeat exams, since many low-grade changes clear on their own.

Medicines

Some high-grade areas can be treated with a prescription cream you apply at home, such as imiquimod, which helps the immune system clear abnormal cells, or fluorouracil, which destroys them.

Procedures and Surgery

Most high-grade dysplasia is treated in the office by destroying the abnormal areas, guided by high-resolution anoscopy. Methods include infrared coagulation, electrocautery, which uses heat, and laser therapy. Large or hard-to-reach areas may be treated in the operating room. A large study of people living with HIV found that treating high-grade dysplasia cut the chance of developing anal cancer by more than half.

Dysplasia can return, because HPV can remain in surrounding tissue, so follow-up exams continue after treatment. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia is a condition you keep an eye on over time. Keep every follow-up visit, even when you feel fine, since changes usually cause no symptoms. After an office treatment, some soreness and light bleeding for a week or two are common; warm baths, stool softeners and cleaning with plain water help. If you are living with HIV, staying on your HIV treatment supports your immune system's ability to control HPV. Not smoking helps too.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if you notice a new lump, bleeding or pain, or if it has been longer than your planned interval since your last exam. Bring your past Pap and biopsy results and a list of your medicines. Ask what grade your dysplasia is, whether it needs treatment or watching, which treatment fits you, and how often you should be checked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is anal dysplasia cancer?

No. It is a change in cells that can come before cancer. Most people with dysplasia never develop anal cancer, especially with regular checks and treatment.

Will it go away on its own?

Low-grade changes often clear on their own. High-grade changes are less likely to, which is why they are usually treated.

Does treatment hurt?

Office treatments use numbing medicine. Soreness for several days afterward is common and is managed with pain relievers, warm baths and stool softeners.

Can my partner catch dysplasia from me?

Dysplasia itself is not passed between people, but HPV can be. Condoms lower the chance, and your partner can ask their own doctor about the HPV vaccine.

Can it come back after treatment?

Yes. HPV can stay in nearby tissue, so new areas can form. Regular follow-up exams find them early, when they are easy to treat again.

Who Treats It and Where

Anal dysplasia is screened for and treated by colorectal surgeons and other clinicians trained in high-resolution anoscopy.

  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health colorectal surgeons in St. Petersburg screen for, diagnose and treat anal dysplasia and HPV-related changes, with regular follow-up exams.
  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute colon and rectal surgeons evaluate high-grade changes in the anal lining.

When dysplasia has become cancer, care moves to the teams named on the anal cancer page.

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Cancer

Oncology teams take over care if abnormal cells in the anal lining develop into cancer.

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Colon & Rectal

Colorectal surgeons use high-resolution anoscopy to find high-grade changes and treat them in the office.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Pathology

Pathologists grade anal Pap tests and biopsies as low or high grade, which sets the plan.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

Learn More About Gallbladder Cancer
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancers
Treatments
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Anal Cancer Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Staging.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/anal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html
  2. Palefsky JM, et al. Treatment of Anal High-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesions to Prevent Anal Cancer. New England Journal of Medicine. 2022.
    https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2201048
  3. MedlinePlus. HPV.
    https://medlineplus.gov/hpv.html
  4. MedlinePlus. Anal Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/analcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are found during surgery for appendicitis. Some grow slowly, and Orlando Health care teams treat them with surgery, chemotherapy and, for some people, HIPEC.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a pathology report after an appendix operation found something nobody expected, or because a scan showed a growth in your appendix or fluid in your belly. Being told you have a rare cancer can feel isolating, and it raises a lot of questions at once. Many appendix tumors are found early this way, by chance, and some kinds grow very slowly.

Appendiceal cancers are a group of tumors that behave in different ways. Some stay inside the appendix and are cured by removing it. Others spread across the lining of the belly, sometimes producing a thick, jelly-like fluid, and need a larger operation that a specialized team plans with care. The kind of tumor, its grade and whether it has spread decide which path fits you.

This page explains the kinds of appendix cancer, the signs, how it is diagnosed and treated, and what follow-up looks like.

What Are Appendiceal Cancers?

The appendix is a finger-shaped pouch, a few inches long, attached to the first part of the large intestine on the lower right side of the belly. Cancer of the appendix is rare, and it is most often diagnosed in middle and older age.

The main kinds are:

  • Mucinous adenocarcinoma: makes mucin, a jelly-like substance, and tends to stay within the belly.
  • Colonic-type adenocarcinoma: looks and behaves much like colon cancer.
  • Goblet cell adenocarcinoma: has features of both adenocarcinoma and neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Signet ring cell adenocarcinoma: a rarer kind named for how its cells look under a microscope.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors: start in hormone-making cells and often grow slowly. Many are small and found by chance. Learn more about neuroendocrine tumors.

Some appendix tumors, called low-grade appendiceal mucinous neoplasms (LAMN), grow very slowly. When mucin from a tumor spreads across the belly lining, the condition is called pseudomyxoma peritonei. Learn more about cancer that has spread to the belly lining on the peritoneal carcinomatosis page.

Symptoms of Appendiceal Cancers

Many appendix cancers cause no symptoms early and are found during surgery or a scan for something else. When there are signs, they can include:

  • Pain in the lower right belly, which can feel like appendicitis.
  • Bloating or a growing waistline, from fluid or mucin building up in the belly.
  • A change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea or constipation.
  • Nausea, vomiting or feeling full quickly.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain.
  • A hernia that is new, as fluid pushes on the belly wall.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Sudden, severe belly pain, especially on the lower right side.
  • A hard, swollen belly with vomiting and no gas or bowel movement.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Belly swelling or tightness that is growing over a few days.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.
  • Pain that your usual medicine does not ease.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Appendiceal Cancers

Appendix cancer starts when changes in a cell's genes let it grow and divide without the usual controls. Why this happens is not known, and in most people no cause can be found. It is not caused by appendicitis, though a tumor can block the appendix and lead to appendicitis.

Risk Factors for Appendiceal Cancers

Few risk factors are known. Those that have been linked include:

  • Getting older.
  • Smoking.
  • Being a woman, for neuroendocrine tumors of the appendix.
  • A family history of certain inherited conditions, such as multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1, for neuroendocrine tumors.

Most people with appendix cancer have none of these, and nothing they did caused it.

Diagnosis of Appendiceal Cancers

Many appendix cancers are diagnosed after an appendectomy, when a pathologist examines the removed appendix. When a tumor is suspected first, tests may include:

  • CT scan of the belly and pelvis, to see the tumor and any fluid or spread.
  • MRI, in some cases, for a closer look at the belly lining.
  • Blood tests for tumor markers, such as CEA, CA 19-9 and CA-125, a tumor marker test that also helps follow treatment.
  • Colonoscopy, to check the colon, since some appendix cancers occur with colon polyps.
  • Biopsy or laparoscopy, a look inside the belly through small incisions, to take tissue and see how far a tumor has spread.

The kind of tumor and its grade, from the pathology report, matter as much as its size in planning treatment.

Treatment Options for Appendiceal Cancers

Your plan depends on the kind of tumor, its grade, whether it has spread, your health and what matters to you.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Appendectomy may be all that is needed for a small, low-grade tumor that has not spread.
  • Right hemicolectomy, a colectomy that removes the right side of the colon and nearby lymph nodes, for larger tumors or certain kinds.
  • Cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC, for tumors that have spread across the belly lining, including pseudomyxoma peritonei. The surgeon removes all visible tumor, then heated chemotherapy is circulated through the belly for about 90 to 120 minutes. The operation can last up to 14 hours, and the hospital stay can be longer than two weeks, so good general health and nutrition are checked closely beforehand.

Medicines

When cancer cannot be removed, palliative care eases symptoms such as pain, bloating and nausea at every stage.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Appendiceal Cancers

Recovery after cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC takes time, often several weeks to months, and eating may be hard at first. A dietitian helps you regain weight and strength. Follow-up continues for years, with CT scans and tumor marker tests, because some kinds can return slowly. Cancer rehabilitation, counseling and support groups help with energy, mood and the strain of a rare diagnosis.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new belly swelling, pain, a change in eating or any side effect. Bring your pathology report, your medicines and your questions: what kind and grade of tumor you have, whether it has spread, whether HIPEC is an option, and how often you will have scans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is appendix cancer the same as colon cancer?

No, though some kinds behave like colon cancer and are treated with similar medicines. The kind of tumor guides the plan.

If my appendix was removed, do I need more surgery?

Sometimes. It depends on the kind, size and grade of the tumor and the edges of what was removed. Your surgeon will explain what the report shows.

What is pseudomyxoma peritonei?

It is a buildup of mucin in the belly from a tumor, most often of the appendix. It usually grows slowly and is often treated with cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC.

Am I a candidate for HIPEC?

It depends on the kind of tumor, how much has spread, and whether all visible tumor can be removed. Your health and strength matter too.

Is appendix cancer inherited?

Rarely. Most cases are not passed down in families, though some neuroendocrine tumors are linked to inherited syndromes.

Who Treats It and Where

Appendiceal cancers are cared for by colorectal and surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, pathologists and nurse navigators, with dietitians who help before and after surgery.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC when cancer has spread within the belly, nurse navigators for gastrointestinal cancers, infusion, and survivorship and support services.

Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health colorectal surgeons in St. Petersburg also care for appendiceal cancers.

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Cancer

Oncologists plan surgery, HIPEC and chemotherapy for appendix tumors, including those that spread across the belly lining.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colorectal surgeons remove appendix tumors, from an appendectomy to a right colectomy for larger ones.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Pathology

Pathologists name the kind and grade of an appendix tumor, often found after an appendectomy, which guides treatment.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis means cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the thin lining of the belly. It most often comes from...

Learn More About Peritoneal Carcinomatosis
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Treatments
Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for...

Learn More About Appendectomy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

Learn More About Tumor Marker Test
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of esophageal cancer, though most people with it never develop cancer. Regular checks and treatment of early changes keep that risk low.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you have just been told you have Barrett's esophagus, the words "cancer risk" may be the ones that stayed with you. It helps to start with the bigger picture: Barrett's is common in people who have had heartburn for a long time, it is found with a scope rather than by symptoms, and most people who have it never get cancer.

Barrett's esophagus happens when the lining of the lower esophagus, the tube that takes food to your stomach, is damaged again and again by stomach acid. To protect itself, the lining changes into a type of tissue that looks more like the lining of the intestine. That new tissue handles acid better, and it also has a higher chance of developing abnormal cells over time.

The plan for Barrett's has three parts: control reflux, check the lining on a schedule, and treat abnormal cells early if they appear. Treatment through a scope can remove early changes without surgery. This page covers what Barrett's is, who gets it, how it is found and treated, and how to live well with it.

What Is Barrett's Esophagus?

Barrett's esophagus is a condition in which the normal lining of the lower esophagus is replaced by a different kind of cell, called intestinal metaplasia. It develops in a small share of people with long-term gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and it is most often found in adults over 50.

Doctors describe Barrett's by what the cells look like under a microscope:

  • No dysplasia. The lining has changed, but the cells are not abnormal. This is the most common finding, and the cancer risk is low.
  • Low-grade dysplasia. A small number of cells show early abnormal changes.
  • High-grade dysplasia. Many cells are abnormal. This is the stage closest to cancer, and it is treated.

Barrett's can lead to a type of esophageal cancer called adenocarcinoma, which is why regular checks matter.

Symptoms of Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's itself causes no symptoms. The symptoms people notice come from the reflux behind it:

  • Heartburn, a burning feeling behind the breastbone, often after meals or when lying down.
  • Regurgitation, a sour or bitter taste as stomach contents come back up.
  • Trouble swallowing, or food that feels stuck.
  • Hoarseness, a lasting cough or sore throat from acid reaching the throat.

Some people with Barrett's have little or no heartburn.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Chest pain or pressure, which can be a heart attack even if you have reflux.
  • Vomiting blood or material that looks like coffee grounds.
  • Black, tarry stools, or feeling faint or dizzy.
  • Food stuck in your throat that keeps you from swallowing your own saliva.
  • Trouble breathing.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Swallowing that is newly hard or painful, or getting harder.
  • Losing weight without trying.
  • Heartburn that keeps waking you or does not ease with your usual medicine.
  • Vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Barrett's Esophagus

The main cause is long-term acid reflux. A ring of muscle at the bottom of the esophagus normally keeps stomach contents in the stomach. When it is weak or relaxes at the wrong time, acid and bile wash back into the esophagus. Over years, the repeated damage prompts the lining to change. Why some people with reflux develop Barrett's and others do not is not fully understood.

Risk Factors for Barrett's Esophagus

You are more likely to have Barrett's if you:

  • Have had GERD symptoms for five years or more.
  • Are over 50.
  • Are male.
  • Are white.
  • Have extra weight around the belly.
  • Smoke now or smoked in the past.
  • Have a parent or sibling with Barrett's esophagus or esophageal cancer.
  • Have a hiatal hernia, where part of the stomach pushes up through the diaphragm.

Having risk factors does not mean you will develop Barrett's.

Prevention of Barrett's Esophagus

There is no sure way to prevent Barrett's, but controlling reflux lowers the damage that leads to it:

  • Reach and keep a healthy weight.
  • Stop smoking.
  • Eat smaller meals and avoid lying down for two to three hours after eating.
  • Raise the head of your bed if reflux bothers you at night.
  • Limit foods and drinks that trigger your heartburn, such as alcohol, fatty meals and large late dinners.
  • Talk with your doctor about heartburn that lasts, rather than treating it on your own for years.

Diagnosis of Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's is diagnosed with an upper endoscopy, also called an EGD. While you are sedated, a doctor passes a thin, flexible tube with a camera through your mouth into your esophagus. Barrett's tissue looks different from the normal lining, and the doctor takes small samples for a biopsy. A pathologist checks the samples for intestinal cells and for dysplasia.

Your doctor may suggest an endoscopy if you have had reflux for years along with other risk factors, or if you have trouble swallowing, weight loss or other warning signs.

Treatment Options for Barrett's Esophagus

Treatment depends on whether dysplasia is present.

Medicines

Acid-reducing medicines, most often proton pump inhibitors, control reflux and help the lining heal. Most people with Barrett's take one long term.

Regular Checks

If you have no dysplasia, you will have an endoscopy on a schedule, often every three to five years, to watch for changes. Checks come sooner when dysplasia is found.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Endoscopic treatment. For dysplasia, a doctor removes or destroys the abnormal lining through a scope, with no incisions. Options include removing raised areas, radiofrequency ablation, which uses heat, and cryotherapy, which uses cold. Healthy lining grows back in its place.
  • Anti-reflux surgery. For reflux that medicine does not control, surgery can tighten the valve at the bottom of the esophagus, and a hiatal hernia can be repaired at the same time.
  • Esophageal surgery. When Barrett's has become cancer, early cancers may be removed through a scope; others need surgery.

Clinical trials may be an option for some people, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists them. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's is a long-term condition, and most people live with it without it changing their daily life. Take your reflux medicine as prescribed, even when you feel fine. Keep every scheduled endoscopy, since regular checks are what find changes while they are easy to treat. Keep up the habits that ease reflux, and tell your doctor if symptoms return or change. Many people find it helpful to keep a short record of their endoscopy dates and results.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if swallowing becomes harder, you lose weight without trying, or reflux breaks through your medicine. Bring your medicine list, your last endoscopy report, and your questions: whether dysplasia was found, when your next check is due, whether endoscopic treatment fits you, and how long to stay on acid-reducing medicine.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will Barrett's esophagus turn into cancer?

Most people with Barrett's never develop esophageal cancer. Without dysplasia, the yearly risk is well under 1 percent. Regular checks find changes early, when they can be treated through a scope.

Can Barrett's esophagus go away?

Reflux medicine alone does not usually reverse it. Endoscopic treatment can remove Barrett's tissue, and normal lining often grows back, though checks continue afterward.

How often will I need an endoscopy?

With no dysplasia, often every three to five years, based on how long the Barrett's segment is. With dysplasia, checks and treatment come sooner.

Do I need to take reflux medicine forever?

Many people do, to protect the lining. Your doctor will review the dose and whether surgery could replace it.

Should my family members be checked?

Tell your relatives, especially if they have long-term heartburn. A family history is one reason a doctor may suggest an endoscopy.

Who Treats It and Where

Barrett's esophagus is diagnosed and followed by gastroenterologists, with thoracic and general surgeons for reflux surgery and cancer specialists when cancer develops.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. The Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center treats conditions of the esophagus, including reflux and esophageal cancer, with gastroenterologists and thoracic surgeons in one team, and offers the LINX device and robotic surgery for reflux.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Cares for cancer where the stomach meets the esophagus.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Gastroenterology. Gastroenterologists who perform upper endoscopy to diagnose and follow Barrett's, at offices across the Tampa Bay area.
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Cancer

Cancer teams treat Barrett's that has turned into cancer and care for cancer where the esophagus meets the stomach.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find Barrett's with an endoscopy, schedule follow-up checks and remove early changes through a scope.

Learn More About Digestive Health
General Surgery

Surgeons perform anti-reflux surgery and hiatal hernia repair when medicine does not control the reflux behind Barrett's.

Learn More About General Surgery
Conditions
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

Learn More About Lung Cancer
Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

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Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

Learn More About Thoracic Cancers
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy

References

  1. Shaheen NJ, et al. Diagnosis and Management of Barrett's Esophagus: An Updated ACG Guideline. American Journal of Gastroenterology. 2022.
    https://journals.lww.com/ajg/fulltext/2022/04000/diagnosis_and_management_of_barrett_s_esophagus_.20.aspx
  2. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Barrett's Esophagus.
    https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/barretts-esophagus
  3. MedlinePlus. Barrett's Esophagus.
    https://medlineplus.gov/barrettsesophagus.html
  4. American College of Gastroenterology. Barrett's Esophagus.
    https://gi.org/topics/barretts-esophagus/

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp, and very rarely spreads. Treated early, usually with a short office procedure, it is almost always cured.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Being told you have cancer is unsettling, even when the doctor adds that it is the most treatable kind. If you have just learned that a spot on your face, neck or arm is basal cell carcinoma, you probably want to know what it means for your health, how it will be removed, and how the area will look afterward.

Basal cell carcinoma, often called BCC, starts in the cells deep in the top layer of the skin that make new skin cells. Years of sun exposure damage those cells until some begin to grow out of control. It grows slowly and almost never travels to other parts of the body. Left alone, though, it keeps growing into the skin around it, so removing it while it is small keeps treatment simple and the scar small.

This page explains what BCC looks like, why it forms, how it is diagnosed and treated, and how to lower the chance of another.

What Is Basal Cell Carcinoma?

Basal cell carcinoma is a type of skin cancer that begins in basal cells, which lie at the bottom of the epidermis, the outer layer of skin, and divide to replace skin as it wears away. It is the most common cancer of any kind in the United States.

Most BCCs appear on the head and neck, where the sun hits most, but they can also form on the trunk, arms and legs. They are most common after age 50 and slightly more common in men. BCC very rarely spreads to lymph nodes or organs. If it is ignored for years, it can grow deep into skin, cartilage and even bone, which makes removal harder and can change how the face looks.

Symptoms of Basal Cell Carcinoma

BCC usually does not hurt, so the first sign is often something you see. Look for:

  • A shiny, pearly or see-through bump, pink, red, skin-colored or brown, sometimes with tiny blood vessels on the surface.
  • A sore that bleeds, scabs, seems to heal and then opens again.
  • A flat, firm, pale or waxy patch that looks like a scar.
  • A pink growth with a raised, rolled edge and a dip in the center.
  • A red, scaly patch, often on the chest or back.

Some BCCs itch or feel tender. On darker skin they are often brown or glossy black.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Bleeding from a growth or a treated site that will not stop after 20 minutes of firm pressure.
  • Swelling of the face, lips or throat, or trouble breathing, after a procedure or a new medicine.
  • Chest pain.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Redness, warmth, swelling or pus at a treated site.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after a skin procedure.
  • Stitches that open, or a wound that pulls apart.
  • Pain at the treated site that gets worse after the first two days.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Basal Cell Carcinoma

Most BCCs are caused by ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun and from tanning beds. UV rays damage the DNA in basal cells. When that damage builds up over years, the cells lose control of their normal copying and grow into a tumor. Both day-to-day sun over a lifetime and blistering sunburns add to the damage.

Less common causes include earlier radiation treatment, long-term exposure to arsenic, and rare inherited conditions such as basal cell nevus syndrome.

Risk Factors for Basal Cell Carcinoma

You are more likely to develop BCC if you:

  • Have fair skin that burns easily, or light hair or eyes.
  • Have spent many hours in the sun over the years, or used tanning beds.
  • Are older than 50.
  • Have had a BCC or another skin cancer before.
  • Take medicine that weakens your immune system, for example after a transplant.
  • Had radiation therapy to the skin.

Florida's year-round sun raises the risk for everyone who lives here. Having a risk factor does not mean you will get BCC.

Prevention of Basal Cell Carcinoma

Limiting UV exposure is the most effective protection, and it is never too late to start.

  • Plan outdoor time outside the strongest sun, roughly 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Wear broad-spectrum sunscreen of SPF 30 or higher on exposed skin every day, including cloudy days, and reapply every two hours outdoors.
  • Choose a wide-brimmed hat over a baseball cap, plus sunglasses and tightly woven clothing.
  • Avoid tanning beds.
  • Look over your skin each month, using a mirror for hard-to-see places.

Diagnosis of Basal Cell Carcinoma

Your doctor looks at the spot, often through a lighted magnifier called a dermatoscope, and checks the rest of your skin. To confirm BCC, the doctor numbs the area and takes a small sample, called a skin biopsy. A specialist examines it under a microscope and reports the subtype, which helps choose treatment. Imaging is rarely needed unless a BCC is very large or deep.

Treatment Options for Basal Cell Carcinoma

Most BCCs are treated in the doctor's office with numbing medicine, and you go home the same day.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Excisional surgery. The doctor cuts out the cancer with a small margin of normal skin and closes the wound with stitches.
  • Mohs surgery. The surgeon removes thin layers one at a time and checks each under a microscope before taking more. It is often used on the nose, eyelids, lips, ears, fingers and genitals, and for BCCs that have come back.
  • Scraping and burning. The doctor scrapes the growth away and uses heat to treat the base, for small, thin BCCs.
  • Freezing, called cryosurgery, for some small, shallow spots.
  • Skin cancer reconstruction, when a larger removal needs repair.

Medicines and Other Treatments

Prescription creams and light-based treatment can clear some thin BCCs on the surface. Radiation therapy is an option when surgery is not a good choice. For the rare BCC that is advanced or has spread, targeted therapy pills and immunotherapy can help. Clinical trials may be an option for some people, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists them.

The right choice depends on the size, depth and location of the BCC, and your care team will plan it with you.

Living With Basal Cell Carcinoma

After treatment, keep the wound clean and covered as instructed and limit hard exercise while it heals. Scars fade and flatten over months. Many people who have had one BCC develop another within a few years, so regular skin checks with your doctor matter, often once or twice a year. Daily sunscreen and a monthly look at your skin help you catch any new spot early.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if a treated spot looks like it is coming back, or if you find a new bump or sore that does not heal in three weeks. Bring a note of when you first noticed it. Ask which treatment fits your BCC and why, what the scar will look like, how long healing takes, and how often to schedule skin checks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is basal cell carcinoma serious?

It is a real cancer and needs treatment, but it grows slowly and very rarely spreads. When treated early, it is almost always cured.

Can basal cell carcinoma spread?

Very rarely. Its main harm comes from growing into nearby skin and tissue, which is why removing it while it is small matters.

Will I have a scar?

Usually a small one. Mohs surgery saves as much healthy skin as possible, and reconstruction can repair larger areas.

Can I wait to have it removed?

A short wait to schedule treatment is common and safe for most BCCs. Waiting months or years lets it grow, which can mean a larger operation.

Will it come back?

Treatment cures most BCCs, though one can return in the same place, and new ones can form elsewhere. Regular skin checks catch both early.

Who Treats It and Where

Basal cell carcinoma is treated by dermatologists, Mohs surgeons and, for large or complex cases, surgical oncologists, plastic surgeons and radiation oncologists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team treats basal cell carcinoma from early to advanced stages, with dermatology, surgery, plastic surgery and radiation oncology, and follows people at higher risk of new skin cancers.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists in Carrollwood, Land O' Lakes, North Tampa, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills offer skin cancer checks, dermoscopy, biopsy and removal, with outpatient Mohs surgery by referral in Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills.
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Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons repair the skin after a larger basal cell carcinoma is removed from the face.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Dermatology

Dermatologists find and remove basal cell carcinoma, often with Mohs surgery or a simple excision.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Treatments
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Reconstruction
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

Learn More About Targeted Therapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/skin-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Basal Cell Carcinoma.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/basal-and-squamous-cell-skin-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Basal cell skin cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000824.htm
  4. American Academy of Dermatology. Basal cell carcinoma: Overview.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/bcc

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine. Most bladder cancers are found before they grow into the bladder wall, when they respond well to treatment.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe you saw blood in your urine, or a routine urine test found some. Maybe you have already had a cystoscopy and been told there is a tumor. Either way, you are likely wondering what this means, how serious it is and what treatment involves.

Bladder cancer is one of the more common cancers in the United States, and it is found most often in people over 55. Smoking is its biggest cause. The good news is that most bladder cancers are found early, while they are still in the inner lining of the bladder. These early cancers can usually be removed through a scope, with no incisions, and treated with medicine placed directly into the bladder.

Bladder cancer can come back, so follow-up is a regular part of life after treatment. When the cancer has grown deeper, there are effective options too, including surgery, medicines and radiation, and many people keep their bladder.

This page covers the symptoms, causes, risk factors, diagnosis and treatment of bladder cancer, and what life looks like afterward.

What Is Bladder Cancer?

The bladder is a hollow, muscular organ in the lower belly that stores urine until you empty it. Bladder cancer begins when cells in its inner lining grow out of control. Most are urothelial carcinoma, which starts in the cells that line the bladder.

Doctors group bladder cancer by how deep it has grown:

  • Non-muscle invasive. The cancer is in the lining or the layer just under it. About three in four bladder cancers are found at this stage.
  • Muscle invasive. The cancer has grown into the thick muscle wall of the bladder.
  • Advanced. The cancer has spread beyond the bladder, to lymph nodes or other parts of the body.

Bladder cancer is part of the family of urologic cancers. It is about three to four times more common in men than in women.

Symptoms of Bladder Cancer

  • Blood in the urine. The most common sign. Urine may look pink, red or cola colored, or the blood may show up only on a lab test. It often comes and goes and is usually painless.
  • Changes in urination, such as going more often, burning or pain, an urgent need to go when the bladder is not full, or waking at night to urinate.
  • Signs of more advanced cancer, such as pain in the lower back on one side, belly or bone pain, swollen feet, tiredness, or losing weight without trying.

Blood in the urine should always be checked, even if it goes away.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or being unable to pass any urine.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Fainting, or a seizure or sudden confusion.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Passing only small amounts of urine, with discomfort in the lower belly.
  • Blood in your urine that is new or heavier than before.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or chills, after treatment placed in your bladder, or a fever that lasts more than two days.
  • Burning or pain when you urinate that lasts more than two days after a bladder treatment.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts with changes in the DNA of cells lining the bladder. The kidneys filter harmful chemicals out of the blood into the urine, and the urine then rests in the bladder, so the lining is exposed to them for long periods. Tobacco smoke is the most common source of these chemicals and causes about half of all bladder cancers.

Risk Factors for Bladder Cancer

You are more likely to develop bladder cancer if you:

  • Smoke now or smoked in the past.
  • Are over 55.
  • Are male, or white.
  • Worked with certain chemicals, as painters, metal workers, miners, firefighters and people in rubber, dye, leather and plastics manufacturing may.
  • Had radiation to the pelvis or took the chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide.
  • Have had long-term bladder irritation, such as repeated infections or a long-term catheter.
  • Have had bladder cancer before, or have a family history of it.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get bladder cancer.

Prevention of Bladder Cancer

Not every bladder cancer can be prevented, but you can lower your risk.

  • Do not smoke, and quit if you do. The risk falls over the years after quitting.
  • Follow safety rules for chemicals at work, including protective gear.
  • Drink plenty of fluids, which dilutes the urine.

There is no routine screening test for bladder cancer in people without symptoms, so the most important step is to see your doctor about any blood in your urine.

Diagnosis of Bladder Cancer

Your doctor will ask about your symptoms, smoking and work history, and examine you. Tests may include:

  • Urinalysis and urine cytology. Lab tests that look for blood and for cancer cells in a urine sample.
  • Cystoscopy. A urologist passes a thin, lighted scope through the urethra to look inside the bladder. It is usually done in the office with numbing gel.
  • Transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT). In the operating room, the urologist removes the tumor through the scope. The tissue is examined to confirm cancer and show how deep it goes. See biopsy.
  • Imaging. A CT scan or MRI of the kidneys, ureters and bladder checks the rest of the urinary tract and looks for spread.

Treatment Options for Bladder Cancer

Treatment depends on how deep the cancer has grown, its grade and your overall health. The goal is to treat the cancer while preserving as much bladder function as possible.

Procedures and Surgery

For early cancer, TURBT removes the tumor through a scope. For muscle-invasive cancer, the usual surgery is a radical cystectomy, which removes the bladder and nearby lymph nodes, often by robotic surgery. The surgeon then makes a new way for urine to leave the body: a urostomy, which drains urine into a pouch worn outside the belly, or a neobladder, a new bladder made from intestine that lets you urinate much as before. Some people need only part of the bladder removed.

Medicines

  • Treatment placed in the bladder. After TURBT, medicine is put directly into the bladder through a catheter to lower the chance of the cancer coming back. BCG, a form of immunotherapy, is the most common. Chemotherapy drugs are also used this way.
  • Chemotherapy is often given before cystectomy to improve the chance of cure, and is used for cancer that has spread.
  • Immunotherapy and targeted therapy drugs help control advanced cancer, and some are used after surgery.

Radiation Therapy

For people who want to keep their bladder or who are not able to have major surgery, radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy after a thorough TURBT is an effective option.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team. Clinical trials may also be an option; see the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer often returns in the bladder lining, so regular cystoscopy is part of life after treatment, often every three to six months at first and less often over time. Keep every appointment, even when you feel well. Stopping smoking lowers the chance of the cancer coming back.

After cystectomy, a wound and ostomy nurse teaches you to care for a urostomy, and a neobladder takes practice to learn to empty on a schedule. Changes in sexual function are common after surgery, and treatments can help, so raise them with your team.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if you see blood in your urine again, notice new urinary symptoms or have pain that does not go away. Bring a list of your medicines and your questions: what stage and grade your cancer is, whether bladder-sparing treatment is an option for you, what each treatment means for your daily life, and how often you will need follow-up.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is blood in my urine always cancer?

No. It is more often caused by an infection, kidney stones or an enlarged prostate. It should always be checked, because it can be the first sign of bladder cancer.

Will I lose my bladder?

Most people do not. Early cancers are treated through a scope and with medicine in the bladder. For deeper cancers, radiation and chemotherapy can be an alternative to removal.

Why does bladder cancer come back so often?

The whole lining has been exposed to the same chemicals, so new tumors can form in other spots. Regular cystoscopy finds them early.

What is BCG treatment like?

Medicine is placed in your bladder through a catheter, usually weekly for six weeks, then on a maintenance schedule. Burning and mild flu-like symptoms for a day or two are common.

Can I live a normal life with a urostomy or neobladder?

Yes. Most people return to work, travel, exercise and intimacy. Ostomy nurses help you learn the care, and support groups connect you with others.

Who Treats It and Where

Bladder cancer is treated by urologists and urologic oncologists, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists, who often plan care together.

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Cancer

Oncologists give chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation, including bladder-sparing treatment for deeper cancers.

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Pathology

Pathologists read urine cytology and tumor tissue to set the grade and how deep the cancer has grown.

Learn More About Pathology
Urology

Urologists find bladder tumors by cystoscopy, remove them through the scope and perform bladder removal when needed.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male...

Learn More About Urologic Cancers
Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in...

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Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

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Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to...

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Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Urostomy

A urostomy is surgery that makes a new way for urine to leave your body when the bladder has been removed or can no longer...

Learn More About Urostomy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Bladder Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/bladder/patient/bladder-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Bladder Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/bladder-cancer.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Bladder Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patients/guidelines/content/PDF/bladder-patient.pdf
  4. MedlinePlus. Bladder Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/bladdercancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can cause pain and weaken the bone. Treatments can ease pain, protect the bone and slow the cancer, and many people live with it for years.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Hearing that cancer has reached your bones is hard news. You may be wondering what it means for your treatment, whether the pain can be controlled and whether your bones will break. Those are fair questions, and there are good answers to many of them.

Bone is one of the places cancer most often spreads. Even when it is found in a bone, the cancer is still named for where it began. Prostate cancer in the spine is still prostate cancer, and it is treated with medicines that work on prostate cancer.

Treatment for bone metastasis has two goals that work together. One is to treat the cancer throughout the body. The other is to protect your bones and keep you comfortable and moving, using medicines that strengthen bone, radiation that eases pain, and surgery or procedures that support a weakened bone. Many people with bone metastasis keep living full lives for a long time, especially with breast and prostate cancer.

This page explains what bone metastasis is, the symptoms to watch for, how it is found and the treatments that help.

What Is Bone Metastasis?

Bone metastasis, also called bone metastases or bone mets, happens when cancer cells break away from a tumor, travel through the blood and start growing in a bone. It is different from bone cancer, which starts in the bone itself.

It most often affects the spine, pelvis, hips, ribs, upper arm and thigh bones, and skull. The cancer cells upset the normal cycle in which old bone is broken down and new bone is built. Some cancers eat away at bone and leave thin, weak spots. Others cause hard, abnormal bone to form, which is also weaker than healthy bone.

Bone metastasis can be found at the same time as the first cancer, or months or years after treatment. Blood cancers such as multiple myeloma can also damage bone, and they are treated in their own way.

Symptoms of Bone Metastasis

Some people have no symptoms, and the spread is found on a scan. When symptoms appear, they can include:

  • Bone pain, often a dull ache in the back, hips or a limb that slowly gets worse and may be worse at night.
  • A broken bone after a minor fall or bump, or with no clear cause.
  • Signs of high calcium in the blood, such as thirst, passing more urine, constipation, nausea, tiredness and feeling muddled.
  • Back pain with numbness or weakness, if a tumor in the spine presses on nerves.
  • Tiredness and shortness of breath with activity, if the cancer crowds the bone marrow and lowers blood counts.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels. These can be signs that cancer is pressing on the spinal cord, and fast treatment protects your ability to walk.
  • Sudden, severe pain in a bone after a fall or a simple movement, or not being able to put weight on a leg.
  • Sudden confusion, very heavy sleepiness or a seizure.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • New bone pain, or pain that is getting worse or waking you at night.
  • Back pain that is new and gets worse when you lie down, cough or strain.
  • Thirst, constipation, nausea or passing more urine than usual.
  • Pain, swelling or a loose tooth in your jaw while you take a bone-strengthening medicine.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis is caused by cancer that has spread. Cancer cells that enter the bloodstream can lodge in the bone marrow, where blood flow is rich and the bone releases substances that help them grow. As they multiply, they send signals that make the bone break down too fast or build up in an abnormal way. The pain comes from the tumor stretching the bone's lining, from small breaks, and from pressure on nearby nerves.

Risk Factors for Bone Metastasis

  • The type of cancer. Breast, prostate, lung, kidney and thyroid cancers spread to bone most often. Together, breast and prostate cancer account for most cases.
  • The stage of the cancer. Cancer that is advanced, or has already spread to other organs, is more likely to reach the bone.
  • Certain tumor features, such as a fast-growing or high-grade cancer.
  • Time. The risk can continue for years after the first diagnosis, which is one reason follow-up visits matter for your care.

Prevention of Bone Metastasis Complications

Spread to the bone cannot always be prevented, and treating the original cancer well is the best protection. Once cancer is in the bone, your care team works to prevent fractures, spinal cord pressure and high calcium. Bone-strengthening medicines, such as zoledronic acid (Zometa) or denosumab (Xgeva), lower the risk of these problems. Calcium and vitamin D, as your team advises, a dental checkup before starting these medicines, and staying active within safe limits also help protect your bones.

Diagnosis of Bone Metastasis

Your doctor asks about your pain and examines you. Tests may include:

  • A bone scan, which looks at the whole skeleton for areas of active bone change.
  • X-rays, to look at a painful spot and check whether a bone is at risk of breaking.
  • A CT scan or MRI. MRI is the best test for the spine and nerves.
  • A PET/CT scan, which can show cancer in bone and elsewhere in the body.
  • Blood tests, including calcium and alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme that rises when bone is damaged.
  • A biopsy, sometimes, to confirm that the spot is cancer and which cancer it is.

Treatment Options for Bone Metastasis

Medicines

Treating the cancer throughout the body is the foundation. Depending on the original cancer, that can include hormone therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy or immunotherapy. Bone-strengthening medicines are given as an infusion or a shot every few weeks to months. Pain medicines, from anti-inflammatory drugs to opioids, keep you comfortable; see cancer pain. For prostate cancer, a radioactive medicine called radium-223 (Xofigo) can target the bones directly.

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy to a painful bone eases pain for most people, sometimes in a single treatment. Stereotactic body radiation therapy gives a precise, high dose, often for the spine.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Surgery to support a bone with rods, plates or screws, before or after it breaks.
  • Vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty, which inject bone cement into a collapsed spinal bone to stabilize it and ease pain.
  • Surgery to relieve pressure on the spinal cord.
  • Tumor ablation, which uses heat or cold to destroy a painful tumor.

Support and Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you move safely and stay strong, and a brace can support the spine. Your plan is your own, made with your care team, and it may change as your needs change. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Bone Metastasis

Keep moving within the limits your team sets, since activity helps your bones, muscles and mood. Ask a physical therapist which movements are safe, and avoid heavy lifting or twisting if a bone is weak. Make your home safer with good lighting, handrails and no loose rugs. Keep a pain diary to help your team adjust your medicines, and do not wait for pain to become severe before taking them. See your dentist regularly while on bone-strengthening medicine. Counseling and support groups help many people with the worry that comes with advanced cancer.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if pain changes, a new spot hurts or a medicine is not working. Bring a list of your medicines, your pain diary and your questions: which bones are affected, whether any are at risk of breaking, which activities are safe, and how treatment will be checked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is bone metastasis the same as bone cancer?

No. Bone cancer starts in the bone. Bone metastasis is cancer that spread from another organ, and it is treated as that cancer.

Can bone metastasis be cured?

Treatment can often control it for a long time, though a cure is uncommon. Many people live for years, especially with breast or prostate cancer.

Will my bones break?

Not necessarily. Your team checks for weak spots and uses medicines, radiation or surgery to lower the risk.

Can I still exercise?

Most people can, and staying active helps. A physical therapist can show you safe ways to move and which activities to avoid.

How quickly does radiation ease the pain?

Many people feel better within one to four weeks of radiation to a painful bone, and some feel relief sooner.

Who Treats It and Where

Medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and orthopedic and spine surgeons treat bone metastasis together, with pain specialists and rehabilitation therapists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Specialty centers for each type of cancer, radiation therapy, including stereotactic body radiation therapy, infusion, nurse navigators, and rehabilitation and support services, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who treat breast, lung, prostate and other cancers with chemotherapy and infusion in the Tampa Bay area.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Orthopedics and Spine. Orthopedic spine specialists who treat spinal compression fractures with bracing, vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty and spinal fusion.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Cancer

Oncologists treat the original cancer and give radiation and bone-strengthening medicine to protect weakened bones.

Learn More About Cancer
Pain Management

Pain specialists ease bone pain from spread cancer with medicines, nerve blocks and cement injections in the spine.

Learn More About Pain Management
Radiology

Radiologists read the bone scans, MRIs and PET/CT scans that find cancer in bone and check a bone's fracture risk.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system,...

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Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

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Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and...

Learn More About Cardiotoxicity
Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage...

Learn More About Sarcoma
Treatments
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Metastatic Cancer: When Cancer Spreads.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/metastatic-cancer
  2. American Cancer Society. Bone Metastases.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/advanced-cancer/bone-metastases.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Bone Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/bonecancer.html
  4. Cleveland Clinic. Bone Metastasis.
    https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/bone-metastasis

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and many are not. They are cared for by teams of neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists and radiation oncologists who plan each person's treatment together.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Your brain and spinal cord make up the central nervous system, which controls how you move, feel, think and speak. A tumor anywhere along it can cause symptoms by pressing on nearby nerves, even when it is small and even when it is not cancer. That is why these tumors are diagnosed and treated by the same group of specialists, whether they are in the head or the back.

You may be here because a scan showed a mass, because a doctor used a word such as meningioma, glioma or metastasis, or because you are helping someone you love understand their diagnosis. Many brain and spine tumors grow slowly, and many are not cancer. The type, more than the location alone, shapes what happens next.

This page lists the conditions in this family, explains how doctors find out which type a person has, and describes who treats them. Each condition's own page covers its symptoms, causes and treatment in detail.

What Are Brain and Spine Tumors?

A tumor is a growth of cells that divide when they should not. In the central nervous system, tumors are sorted in three ways.

Where they start. A primary tumor starts in the brain, the spinal cord or the tissues that cover them. A metastatic, or secondary, tumor starts as cancer somewhere else, such as the lung or breast, and spreads to the brain or the spine. Metastatic tumors are more common than primary ones in adults.

Whether they are cancer. Benign tumors are not cancer and usually grow slowly with clear edges. Malignant tumors are cancer and can grow into nearby tissue. In the brain and spine, a benign tumor can still need treatment because there is so little room around it.

How fast they grow. Doctors give primary tumors a grade from 1, the slowest-growing, to 4, the fastest. The grade, the tumor's gene changes and its location together guide treatment.

They share some signs. Seizures, headaches that keep getting worse, changes in thinking or vision, weakness or numbness, back or neck pain that does not ease with rest, and trouble with balance or walking. Most of these have far more common causes.

Their causes are mostly unknown. Known risks include earlier radiation to the head or spine and a few rare inherited syndromes. Having another cancer is the main risk for a metastatic tumor. There is no screening test.

They affect adults and children. Some types, such as medulloblastoma, are most common in children, and others, such as meningioma and glioblastoma, in adults.

Conditions in This Family

Brain tumors

  • Brain tumors, including meningiomas, gliomas such as astrocytoma and glioblastoma, pituitary tumors, other skull base tumors and tumors that have spread to the brain from cancer elsewhere.

Spinal tumors

  • Spinal tumors, which can grow inside the spinal cord, in the membranes around it, or in the bones of the spine. Many tumors of the spine have spread there from cancer elsewhere.

Related conditions

  • Bone metastasis, when cancer spreads to bones, including the spine.
  • Lymphoma, which in rare cases starts in the brain or spinal cord as central nervous system lymphoma.
  • Cancer pain, including pain from a tumor pressing on nerves.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

Brain and spine tumors are often found on a scan done after a seizure, a change in strength or sensation, or for another reason entirely. Naming the exact type usually takes several specialists working together.

A neurological exam. Your doctor checks your strength, sensation, reflexes, balance, vision, hearing and thinking, to learn which part of the nervous system is affected.

Imaging. An MRI with contrast dye is the main test for both brain and spine tumors and shows the tumor's size and exact location. A CT scan is often used first in an emergency, and it shows the bones of the spine well. A PET-CT scan or a bone scan may look for cancer elsewhere in the body.

A biopsy. A scan alone cannot say for certain what a tumor is. A neurosurgeon takes a sample, often while removing the tumor, or with a needle when it is hard to reach. A neuropathologist, a doctor who specializes in tumors of the nervous system, names its type and grade. See biopsy.

Tests on the tumor. Lab tests look for gene changes in the tumor cells, which now help define many brain tumor types and guide treatment. See molecular profiling.

A spinal tap, for some tumors, collects fluid from around the spine to look for cancer cells.

Treatment depends on the type, grade and location. Brain and spine tumors are treated with cancer surgery, radiation therapy, proton therapy, stereotactic body radiation therapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy, followed by cancer rehabilitation where it helps. Some slow-growing tumors are watched with regular scans. Clinical trials may be an option; the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page shows trials for these tumors.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to anyone with a brain or spine tumor or being checked for one. Each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • A seizure, or sudden confusion.
  • New weakness or numbness in the arms or legs, or on one side of the face or body.
  • Losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Sudden trouble speaking or seeing.
  • A sudden, severe headache unlike any you have had.
  • Fainting, or drowsiness that makes it hard to wake.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Headaches that are getting worse over days, or that come with vomiting.
  • Back or neck pain that is new, getting worse, or worse when you lie down.
  • Balance or walking that is getting harder.
  • Changes in mood, memory or behavior that family members notice.
  • Trouble keeping down medicines you take every day.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

If a scan has shown a mass but you have no diagnosis yet, keep a copy of the report and write down what you were told. Ask which specialist you will see next, whether a biopsy is needed, and who will call you with results. Asking for a second opinion is common and welcome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a spine tumor the same as a brain tumor?

They are related. Both affect the central nervous system and are treated by the same specialists, but they cause different symptoms and are often different tumor types.

Are most brain and spine tumors cancer?

Many are not. Meningiomas, most pituitary tumors and many spinal tumors are benign, though they can still need treatment because of where they grow.

What is the difference between a neuro-oncologist and a neurosurgeon?

A neurosurgeon operates to take a biopsy or remove a tumor. A neuro-oncologist treats the tumor with medicines such as chemotherapy, manages problems such as seizures, and often coordinates your overall care.

Can these tumors be found early?

There is no screening test. Paying attention to symptoms that last or get worse, and getting them checked, is how most are found.

Will I need surgery?

Often, but not always. Some tumors are best treated with radiation or medicine, and some slow-growing ones are only watched. Your team will explain the choice for your tumor.

Who Treats It and Where

Brain and spine tumors are treated by neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists, radiation oncologists, neuroradiologists and neuropathologists, with physical, occupational and speech therapists and behavioral medicine specialists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Neuro-Oncology Center cares for adults and children with all types of brain and spine tumors. Its specialists meet weekly to plan each person's treatment, offer radiation and proton therapy, and welcome requests for a second opinion. A support group helps patients and families learn about their condition and cope with it.
  • Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute. Its neurosurgeons operate on brain, pituitary, skull base and spinal tumors.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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Cancer

Neuro-oncologists and radiation oncologists meet weekly with surgeons to plan care for every brain and spine tumor type.

Learn More About Cancer
Neuroscience

Neurosurgeons operate on tumors of the brain, skull base, spinal cord and spine and manage the seizures they can cause.

Learn More About Neuroscience
Radiology

Neuroradiologists read the MRI and CT scans that find these tumors, track their growth and map them before surgery.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many...

Learn More About Spinal Tumors
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Treatments
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Adult Central Nervous System Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/brain/patient/adult-brain-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors in Adults.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/brain-spinal-cord-tumors-adults.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors in Children.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/brain-spinal-cord-tumors-children.html
  4. MedlinePlus. Brain Tumors.
    https://medlineplus.gov/braintumors.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly. They are treated with surgery, radiation and medicine, often in combination, by teams of brain surgeons, cancer doctors and radiation specialists working together.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Being told that a scan shows a mass in the brain is frightening, and the words that follow, such as glioma, meningioma or metastasis, can be hard to take in. It may help to know that brain tumors are rare, that many are not cancer, and that the type matters far more than the word tumor itself.

A brain tumor forms when cells in or near the brain grow out of control. Some start in the brain itself. Others start somewhere else in the body, such as the lung or breast, and spread to the brain. Because the skull leaves little room, even a tumor that is not cancer can cause symptoms by pressing on the brain.

Many brain tumors are found after a seizure, or on a scan done for another reason. A single bad headache, however painful, is rarely a sign of one. This page explains the kinds of brain tumor, their symptoms, how they are diagnosed and how they are treated.

What Is a Brain Tumor?

Doctors sort brain tumors in two main ways: where they started, and how fast they grow.

Primary brain tumors start in the brain or the tissues around it. More than 100 types are known. The most common include:

  • Meningiomas, which grow from the membranes that cover the brain. Most are not cancer and grow slowly.
  • Gliomas, which start in the glial cells that support the nerve cells. They include astrocytomas, oligodendrogliomas and ependymomas. Glioblastoma is the fastest-growing glioma.
  • Pituitary tumors, in the small gland behind the nose that makes hormones. Nearly all are not cancer.
  • Other skull base tumors, such as vestibular schwannomas, craniopharyngiomas and chordomas.
  • Medulloblastomas, most common in children.
  • Central nervous system lymphoma, a rare lymphoma that starts in the brain or spinal cord.

Metastatic (secondary) brain tumors start as cancer elsewhere and spread to the brain. They are more common than primary brain tumors and most often come from lung cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, kidney cancer and colon cancer.

Grade describes how abnormal the cells look and how fast they are likely to grow, from grade 1, the slowest, to grade 4, the fastest. A grade 1 tumor can sometimes be cured with surgery alone.

Tumors of the spinal cord are covered on the spinal tumors page.

Symptoms of Brain Tumors

Symptoms depend on where the tumor is, its size and how fast it grows.

  • Seizures, often the first sign in adults.
  • Headaches that are new, keep getting worse, are worst in the morning or wake you at night, especially with nausea or vomiting.
  • Changes in thinking, memory, speech or personality, often noticed first by family.
  • Weakness or numbness on one side of the body.
  • Vision changes, such as blurred or double vision or losing side vision.
  • Balance problems, dizziness or hearing loss.
  • Hormone changes, with a pituitary tumor, such as changes in periods, growth of the hands and face, or unexplained weight gain.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • A seizure, especially a first one, or sudden confusion.
  • New weakness or numbness in an arm, leg or one side of the face.
  • Sudden trouble speaking or understanding speech.
  • Sudden loss of vision.
  • A sudden, severe headache unlike any you have had.
  • Fainting, or drowsiness that makes it hard to wake.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Headaches that are getting worse over days, or that come with vomiting.
  • Blurred or double vision that is getting worse.
  • Balance that is getting worse, or new falls.
  • Changes in mood, memory or behavior that family members notice.
  • Side effects from steroids or other new medicines, such as trouble sleeping, rash or high blood sugar.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Brain Tumors

A brain tumor begins when changes in a cell's genes let it grow and divide when it should not. In most people, nobody can say why those changes happened. Primary brain tumors are not caused by head injuries, and research has not shown that cell phones cause them.

A metastatic brain tumor has a known cause: cancer cells that travel from a tumor elsewhere in the body through the blood.

Risk Factors for Brain Tumors

  • Radiation to the head, often from treatment for an earlier cancer.
  • Inherited syndromes, such as neurofibromatosis, Li-Fraumeni syndrome and von Hippel-Lindau disease. These are rare.
  • Family history of brain tumors, in rare cases.
  • Age. Most brain tumors occur in older adults, though some types are most common in children.
  • A weakened immune system, which raises the risk of central nervous system lymphoma.
  • Having another cancer, for metastatic tumors.

Most people with a brain tumor have none of these. A person's lifetime chance of a primary brain tumor is under 1 percent.

Diagnosis of Brain Tumors

A neurological exam. Your doctor checks your vision, hearing, balance, strength, reflexes and thinking.

Imaging. An MRI with contrast dye is the main test. It shows the tumor's location and size. A CT scan may be used first, and special MRI scans can map nearby areas that control speech and movement before surgery.

A biopsy. A sample of the tumor names its type and grade. It is often taken during surgery to remove the tumor. When the tumor is hard to reach, a neurosurgeon takes the sample with a needle through a small opening in the skull. See biopsy.

Tests on the tumor. Lab tests look for gene changes, such as IDH or MGMT, that refine the diagnosis and guide treatment. See molecular profiling.

A spinal tap, for some tumors, to check the fluid around the brain and spine for cancer cells.

Treatment Options for Brain Tumors

Treatment depends on the tumor's type, grade, gene changes and location, and on your age and health. Most plans combine more than one treatment.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery is often the first step. The goal is to remove as much of the tumor as is safe. A craniotomy opens part of the skull. For tumors near areas that control speech or movement, an awake craniotomy lets the surgeon check those functions during the operation. Pituitary and skull base tumors can often be reached through the nose with a thin scope. Deep tumors may be treated with laser therapy through a small opening, guided by MRI. See cancer surgery.

Radiation

  • Radiation therapy, often after surgery or when surgery is not possible.
  • Stereotactic radiosurgery, which focuses many beams on a small tumor in one or a few sessions.
  • Proton therapy, which can limit radiation to nearby healthy brain.
  • Radiation implants, placed during surgery for some tumors.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy, including pills taken at home for some gliomas.
  • Targeted therapy for tumors with specific gene changes.
  • Tumor treating fields, a wearable device for glioblastoma that disrupts cancer cell growth.
  • Steroids to reduce swelling, and anti-seizure medicines.

Some slow-growing tumors, such as small meningiomas, are watched with regular MRI scans. Your plan is your own, made with your care team. Clinical trials may be an option; the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page shows trials for brain tumors.

Living With Brain Tumors

Physical, occupational and speech therapy help you regain skills after surgery or radiation. See cancer rehabilitation. Ask about driving: after a seizure, Florida law and your doctor will set when you can drive again. Keep taking anti-seizure medicine exactly as prescribed. Tiredness and changes in memory or mood are common, and counseling and support groups help you and your family. You will have regular MRI scans after treatment.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call your team if a symptom returns or worsens, if a new one appears, or if medicine side effects are hard to manage. Bring your medicines list, your scan reports and your questions: the tumor's type and grade, the goal of treatment, how it may affect daily life, and whether a second opinion would help.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is every brain tumor cancer?

No. Many, such as most meningiomas and pituitary tumors, are not cancer. They can still need treatment because of where they grow.

Can a brain tumor spread to the rest of my body?

Primary brain tumors very rarely spread outside the brain and spinal cord. They can grow into nearby brain tissue.

Will surgery change my personality or memory?

Surgeons plan carefully to protect the areas that control thinking, speech and movement. Some changes can happen, and rehabilitation often helps them improve.

Can I drive?

Not right after a seizure or brain surgery. Your doctor will tell you when it is safe, based on your treatment and Florida's rules.

Should I get a second opinion?

A second opinion is common with a brain tumor and welcomed by most teams. It can confirm the diagnosis and the plan before you begin.

Who Treats It and Where

Brain tumors are treated by neurosurgeons, neuro-oncologists, radiation oncologists, neuroradiologists and neuropathologists, with physical, occupational and speech therapists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Neuro-Oncology Center cares for adults and children with every kind of brain tumor. Its specialists meet weekly to plan each person's treatment, offer radiation and proton therapy, and welcome requests for a second opinion.
  • Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute. Its neurosurgeons operate on brain, pituitary and skull base tumors, including surgery through the nose, laser therapy, awake craniotomy and brain mapping before surgery, and some are bilingual in English and Spanish.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Advanced Rehabilitation

Physical, occupational and speech therapists help people regain movement, daily skills and speech after brain tumor care.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Cancer

Neuro-oncologists and radiation oncologists plan chemotherapy, radiation and proton therapy after or instead of surgery.

Learn More About Cancer
Neuroscience

Neurosurgeons remove brain, pituitary and skull base tumors and take the biopsy that names the tumor's type and grade.

Learn More About Neuroscience
Conditions
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many...

Learn More About Spinal Tumors
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Treatments
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Adult Central Nervous System Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/brain/patient/adult-brain-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors in Adults.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/brain-spinal-cord-tumors-adults.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Brain Tumors.
    https://medlineplus.gov/braintumors.html
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients. Brain Cancer: Gliomas.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers, and found early it is among the most treatable. Orlando Health care teams screen for it, diagnose it and treat it, with nurse navigators to guide you.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a mammogram called you back, because you felt a lump, or because a doctor has just said the words breast cancer. Each of those moments brings a lot to take in. Most breast lumps turn out not to be cancer, and many breast cancers today are found small, before they cause any symptoms, when treatment works best.

Breast cancer comes in several kinds, and each tumor has its own features, such as whether hormones feed its growth. Those features, the size of the tumor and whether it has spread shape the treatment plan. Most people have more than one kind of treatment, such as surgery followed by radiation or medicine, and many go on to live full lives after treatment ends.

This page explains what breast cancer is, the signs to watch for, what raises the risk, how it is diagnosed and treated, and what life with it can look like.

What Is Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer most often starts in the cells that line the milk ducts or the lobules, the glands that make milk. About one in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. Men can get it too, though it is rare.

The main kinds are:

  • Invasive ductal carcinoma: starts in a milk duct and grows into nearby tissue. The most common kind.
  • Invasive lobular carcinoma: starts in a lobule and grows into nearby tissue.
  • Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS): abnormal cells that have stayed inside the duct, often called stage 0.
  • Triple negative breast cancer: lacks the three markers many medicines target.
  • Inflammatory breast cancer: a rare kind that makes the breast look red and swollen.

Symptoms of Breast Cancer

Many breast cancers cause no symptoms and are found on a screening mammogram. When there are signs, they can include:

  • A new lump or thickening in the breast or underarm. A cancerous lump is often firm, with uneven edges, and painless, though some are soft or tender.
  • A change in size or shape of one breast.
  • Skin changes: dimpling, puckering, redness or scaly skin on the breast or nipple.
  • A nipple that turns inward when it did not before.
  • Nipple discharge other than breast milk, especially if it is bloody.
  • Pain in one spot that does not go away.

Pain in both breasts that comes and goes with your cycle is rarely cancer. Have any new change checked, even after a normal mammogram.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A new lump in your breast or underarm.
  • A breast that turns red, swollen or warm over a few days.
  • Swelling in your arm on the side of your surgery.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.
  • Nausea, vomiting or diarrhea that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Breast Cancer

Breast cancer starts when changes in a cell's genes let it grow and divide without the usual controls. Most of these changes build up over a lifetime, and in most people no single cause can be found. About 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers come from an inherited gene change, most often in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, and these tend to appear at a younger age.

Hormones play a part too. Most breast cancers are hormone receptor positive, meaning estrogen or progesterone can feed their growth.

Risk Factors for Breast Cancer

Some risk factors are part of who you are:

  • Being a woman and getting older.
  • A personal history of breast cancer or certain benign breast conditions, such as atypical hyperplasia.
  • A parent, sibling or child with breast or ovarian cancer, on either side of the family.
  • An inherited gene change, such as BRCA1, BRCA2 or PALB2.
  • Dense breast tissue.
  • Starting periods before age 12 or menopause after 55.
  • Radiation to the chest at a young age.

Others are linked to daily life:

  • Drinking alcohol.
  • Excess weight after menopause.
  • Not being physically active.
  • Hormone therapy after menopause.
  • Smoking.

Most people with breast cancer have no family history of it, and having a risk factor does not mean you will get it.

Prevention of Breast Cancer

There is no sure way to prevent breast cancer, and a few habits lower the risk:

  • Keep a healthy weight and move your body, aiming for at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week.
  • Limit alcohol, or skip it.
  • Do not smoke.
  • Ask your doctor about the risks and benefits of hormone therapy after menopause.

If your risk is high, your care team may suggest genetic counseling, added screening with breast MRI, medicine that lowers risk or, for a few people, surgery to remove the breasts. Regular breast cancer screening finds cancer early, when treatment works best.

Diagnosis of Breast Cancer

Diagnosis often starts with a mammogram or a lump you or your doctor felt. Your doctor examines your breasts and underarms and may order:

  • Diagnostic mammogram and breast ultrasound, to look closely at the area. Ultrasound shows whether a lump is solid or a fluid-filled cyst.
  • Breast MRI, for some people, to see the tumor's size or check the other breast.
  • Breast biopsy, the only way to know for sure. A needle guided by imaging takes a small sample for a pathologist to examine.

If cancer is found, the lab tests the tumor for hormone receptors and a protein called HER2, and some tumors get a genomic test that shows whether chemotherapy would help. The stage, from 0 to IV, depends on the tumor's size and whether it has spread. Some people need a CT scan, bone scan or PET-CT scan.

Treatment Options for Breast Cancer

Your plan depends on the kind and stage of cancer, its hormone and HER2 status, and what matters to you. A tumor board of specialists often reviews it.

Procedures and Surgery

Most people have surgery. A lumpectomy removes the tumor and a rim of healthy tissue, and is usually followed by radiation. A mastectomy removes the whole breast, sometimes keeping the skin and nipple. Surgeons also check nearby lymph nodes, often removing only the first few nodes the cancer would reach. Breast reconstruction can happen at the same time as surgery or later.

Radiation

Radiation therapy destroys cancer cells left after surgery. Some early cancers need only a short course. Proton therapy is an option for some people.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy, before surgery to shrink a tumor or after to lower the chance of return.
  • Hormone therapy, such as tamoxifen or an aromatase inhibitor, for hormone receptor positive cancers, often taken for five years or more.
  • Targeted therapy, such as medicines aimed at HER2.
  • Immunotherapy, for some triple negative cancers.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Breast Cancer

Treatment can bring tiredness, changes in how your body looks and feels, and worry. A nurse navigator helps coordinate visits and answers questions between them. Lymphedema therapy and cancer rehabilitation help with arm movement, swelling and strength. Younger women may want to talk about fertility before treatment starts. Support groups and counseling help too. After treatment come regular checkups and mammograms, and hormone therapy, if you take it, continues at home for years. Ongoing pain in the chest wall or arm after surgery has a name, post-mastectomy pain, and it can be treated.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about any new lump, pain, swelling or side effect, or anything that makes a medicine hard to keep taking. Bring your medicines, your family history of cancer and your questions: what kind and stage of cancer you have, what each treatment is for, what side effects to expect, and how your care continues after treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a lump mean I have breast cancer?

Most breast lumps are not cancer; cysts and benign growths are common. Any new lump still needs to be checked.

Can men get breast cancer?

Yes, though it is rare. Men often notice a firm lump under the nipple, and treatment is much the same as for women.

Will I need chemotherapy?

Not everyone does. It depends on the kind and stage of the cancer and, for some cancers, on a genomic test of the tumor.

Is a lumpectomy as effective as a mastectomy?

For many early breast cancers, a lumpectomy followed by radiation works as well as a mastectomy.

Should I get genetic testing?

Ask about it if you were diagnosed before age 50, have triple negative breast cancer, or have relatives with breast, ovarian, pancreatic or prostate cancer. Results can guide your treatment and your family's screening.

Who Treats It and Where

Breast cancer is cared for by a team of breast surgeons, oncologists, breast radiologists, reconstructive surgeons, nurse navigators and genetic counselors.

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Cancer

Cancer specialists plan breast cancer surgery, radiation and medicines together and follow you after treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Radiology

Radiologists read the mammogram, ultrasound or MRI and guide the biopsy that confirms breast cancer.

Learn More About Radiology
Women's

Women's care teams often find a breast change first, through a yearly exam or a screening mammogram.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow...

Learn More About Post-Mastectomy Pain
Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average...

Learn More About Breast Cancer Screening
Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes...

Learn More About Mammogram
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Breast Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Breast Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Breast Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/breastcancer.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Breast Cancer: Screening (2024).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/breast-cancer-screening
  5. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and numbness. Most cancer pain can be eased with the right mix of medicines, procedures and support, and telling your care team about it is the first step.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Not everyone with cancer has pain. When it does come, it can make the simplest things harder, from sleeping and eating to getting to the bathroom. For survivors, a new ache can also bring the fear that the cancer is back. Pain is a symptom your care team wants to hear about, and treating it is part of treating your cancer.

Many people hold back from mentioning pain. They worry about bothering the team, about side effects, or about becoming dependent on pain medicine. Some think pain is simply part of having cancer and must be endured. Pain that is controlled helps you rest, eat, stay active and get through treatment, and it can almost always be made better.

There are many ways to ease cancer pain, and most people do best with a combination. This page explains the kinds of cancer pain, what causes it, how your team finds the source and the medicines, procedures and other therapies that help.

What Is Cancer Pain?

Cancer pain is any pain caused by cancer or its treatment. It can be mild or severe, constant or coming and going, and it can last a short time or for months. It is common in advanced cancer and also affects many people during and after treatment.

Doctors describe a few kinds, because each responds to different treatments:

  • Bone and tissue pain, a dull, aching or throbbing pain from a tumor in a bone, muscle or organ.
  • Nerve pain, a burning, shooting, tingling or electric feeling when nerves are pressed on or damaged.
  • Breakthrough pain, a flare that breaks through medicine that usually controls the pain.
  • Pain after treatment, such as pain after surgery or lasting nerve damage from chemotherapy.

Symptoms of Cancer Pain

Cancer pain can feel like:

  • A deep ache in the back, hips, ribs or another bone, often worse at night.
  • Sharp, cramping or throbbing pain in the belly, chest or other soft tissue.
  • Burning, shooting or tingling, or numbness in the hands and feet.
  • Mouth or throat soreness, or skin pain where radiation was given.
  • Headaches, with tumors in or near the brain.

Pain can also lead to poor sleep, low appetite, tiredness, irritability and low mood, which can make the pain feel worse.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels. These can be signs that cancer is pressing on the spinal cord.
  • Being very sleepy and hard to wake, or breathing that is slow or shallow, after taking pain medicine.
  • Sudden, severe pain that is new and unlike any you have had, or a sudden severe headache.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Pain that your current medicine plan is not controlling.
  • New pain, or pain in a new place.
  • Breakthrough pain that comes more often than before.
  • No bowel movement for three days while you take an opioid.
  • Nausea or drowsiness that keeps you from taking your pain medicine.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Cancer Pain

Pain can come from the cancer itself. As a tumor grows, it can press on nerves, bones or organs, stretch the lining of an organ or block a hollow organ such as the bowel. Cancer that has spread to the bone is a common cause; see bone metastasis.

Pain can also come from treatment:

  • Surgery, with pain while healing and sometimes lasting pain at the site, such as post-mastectomy pain.
  • Chemotherapy, which can damage nerves in the hands and feet and cause mouth sores.
  • Radiation, which can irritate the skin, mouth, throat, bowel or bladder.
  • Long-term steroids, which can weaken bones.
  • Some tests, such as a biopsy.

Risk Factors for Cancer Pain

  • Advanced cancer, especially cancer that has spread.
  • Cancer in certain places, such as the bones, pancreas, head and neck, or near the spine or major nerves.
  • Treatments that affect nerves, including some chemotherapy medicines.
  • Pain before cancer, or past nerve problems such as diabetic neuropathy.
  • Anxiety, depression and poor sleep, which can make pain feel stronger.

Diagnosis of Cancer Pain

Finding the source of pain starts with a conversation and an exam. Your team asks where it hurts, what it feels like, how strong it is on a scale of 0 to 10, when it is worse or better and how it affects your day. A pain diary helps.

Tests can show the cause, such as a bone scan, CT scan or MRI. Blood tests check for problems such as high calcium. Your team checks your pain at each visit, because it can change as treatment goes on.

Treatment Options for Cancer Pain

Medicines

For mild pain, acetaminophen or anti-inflammatory medicines such as ibuprofen may be enough. For moderate or severe pain, your doctor may prescribe an opioid such as morphine or oxycodone. A long-acting dose controls pain around the clock, and a fast-acting dose treats breakthrough pain. Nerve pain often responds to medicines first developed for seizures or depression, such as gabapentin or duloxetine. Steroids can ease swelling around a tumor, and creams or patches can numb a painful area. In Florida, cancer is a condition that can qualify for medical marijuana with a physician's certification; talk with your team before you try it.

Procedures and Radiation

  • Nerve blocks and epidural steroid injections, which place medicine around a nerve to stop pain signals.
  • Neurolysis, which uses medicine or heat to stop a nerve from sending pain signals for months.
  • Intrathecal pain pumps, which deliver small doses of medicine near the spinal cord.
  • Radiation therapy, to shrink a tumor pressing on a bone, nerve or organ.
  • Tumor ablation or surgery, in some cases.

Therapy and Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation and physical therapy help with weakness, stiffness and balance. Massage, acupuncture, meditation and relaxation can ease pain, stress and fatigue alongside your medicines.

Palliative care, a team focused on comfort and quality of life, can help at any stage, alongside treatment for the cancer. Your plan is your own, made with your care team, and it changes as your needs change.

Living With Cancer Pain

Take pain medicine on schedule, without waiting for pain to become severe, since keeping pain under control works better than chasing it. Keep a pain diary of what helps and what does not. Opioids cause constipation, so ask about a stool softener or laxative from the start, and drink fluids. Do not drive until you know how a new medicine affects you. Store medicines safely, away from children and visitors. Heat, cold, gentle stretching, rest breaks and activities you enjoy can help, and so can a counselor or support group.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Talk to your team whenever pain changes or a medicine is not working. Bring your pain diary, a list of every medicine you take and your questions: what is causing the pain, how to take each medicine, what to do for breakthrough pain, and how to handle side effects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I become addicted to pain medicine?

Addiction is uncommon when opioids are taken as prescribed for cancer pain, with your team watching closely. Your body may get used to a medicine, which is different from addiction. Tell your team if you have had problems with substances before.

Does more pain mean my cancer is getting worse?

Not always. Pain can come from treatment, healing or another cause. Tell your team about new pain so they can find the reason.

Can pain be controlled if my cancer cannot be cured?

Yes. Most cancer pain can be eased a great deal, and palliative care teams specialize in it.

Is it all right to take over-the-counter pain relievers?

Ask first. Some can affect your blood counts, kidneys or other medicines.

What can I do if pain keeps me awake?

Tell your team. Changing the timing or type of medicine, or adding one for nerve pain, often helps you sleep.

Who Treats It and Where

Oncologists, palliative care specialists, pain management doctors, rehabilitation therapists and counselors treat cancer pain, often together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Specialty centers, radiation therapy, nurse navigators, rehabilitation therapists, counselors and support services, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Yoga, meditation, oncology massage and acupuncture that ease pain, stress and fatigue during and after treatment. Massage and acupuncture are paid services.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who work with doctors across the Florida Medical Clinic network to provide palliative care, including pain management, in the Tampa Bay area.
  • Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute. Interventional pain specialists who offer epidural steroid injections, neurolysis and intrathecal therapies for cancer pain, and pain care for people with brain and spine tumors.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Rehabilitation therapists rebuild strength and movement that pain and treatment take away, and teach safer ways to move.

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Interventional pain doctors use nerve blocks, neurolysis and spinal pain pumps when medicines alone do not control pain.

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A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

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A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Cancer Pain (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/side-effects/pain/pain-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Cancer Pain.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/pain.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Palliative Care.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  4. MedlinePlus. Cancer Pain.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000818.htm

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and when it does happen, finding it early means it can often be treated while your cancer care goes on. Oncologists and cardiologists watch for it together.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Many cancer medicines and radiation to the chest work very well against cancer, and a few of them can also strain the heart. If your oncologist has mentioned heart tests before treatment, or you have been told your heart function has dropped, you may be wondering what this means for your cancer care. For most people, the answer is that both can be cared for at the same time.

Cardiotoxicity covers several problems, from a weaker heart muscle to an irregular heartbeat or high blood pressure. Some appear during treatment. Others show up months or years after treatment has ended, which is why survivors are encouraged to keep their heart health in view for life.

The best protection is planning. Your care team checks your heart before treatment starts, watches it during treatment, and acts early if anything changes. This page explains which treatments can affect the heart, the signs to watch for, how heart problems are found and treated, and how to protect your heart for the long run.

What Is Cardiotoxicity?

Cardiotoxicity means harm to the heart or blood vessels from a treatment. In cancer care, it is a side effect of certain chemotherapy medicines, targeted therapies, immunotherapies, hormone therapies and radiation to the chest. The care of the heart during and after cancer treatment is a growing field of its own, called cardio-oncology.

It can take several forms:

  • A weaker heart muscle, which pumps less blood with each beat. When it is severe, it is called heart failure.
  • Heart rhythm changes, such as atrial fibrillation or a change on the heart tracing called a long QT interval.
  • High blood pressure, a common effect of some targeted medicines.
  • Inflammation of the heart muscle (myocarditis), a rare effect of some immunotherapies.
  • Narrowed or stiff arteries and heart valves, which can develop years after radiation to the chest.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs.

Some changes improve once a medicine is adjusted; others are managed like any other heart condition.

Symptoms of Cardiotoxicity

Early heart changes often cause no symptoms, which is why your care team checks with tests. When symptoms appear, they can include:

  • Feeling more tired or out of breath than usual with everyday activity.
  • Swelling in the feet, ankles or legs.
  • A racing, pounding or fluttering heartbeat.
  • Needing more pillows to sleep, or waking up short of breath.
  • Quick weight gain from fluid.
  • Dizziness or lightheadedness.

Tiredness and breathlessness have many causes during treatment, so tell your care team about them.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Chest pain, pressure or tightness.
  • Trouble breathing, or breathlessness that comes on suddenly.
  • Fainting or nearly fainting.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Coughing up blood, or sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • New or increasing swelling in your feet, ankles or legs.
  • A gain of more than 2 to 3 pounds in a day or 5 pounds in a week.
  • A heartbeat that feels fast, irregular or fluttering while you are resting.
  • Getting winded by activity that was easy for you a week ago.
  • Blood pressure readings at home higher than the target your team gave you.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Cardiotoxicity

Each treatment affects the heart in its own way:

  • Anthracycline chemotherapy, such as doxorubicin, can injure heart muscle cells. The risk rises with the total dose received over time.
  • HER2-targeted medicines, such as trastuzumab, can weaken the heart's pumping, usually in a way that improves when the medicine is paused.
  • Some targeted medicines that block blood vessel growth can raise blood pressure, and some can affect the heart rhythm.
  • Fluorouracil and capecitabine can cause the heart's arteries to tighten briefly.
  • Immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy, can rarely cause the immune system to inflame the heart.
  • Some hormone therapies for prostate and breast cancer can affect blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar.
  • Radiation to the chest can affect the heart muscle, arteries, valves and the sac around the heart, sometimes many years later.

Risk Factors for Cardiotoxicity

Your risk is higher if you:

  • Had heart disease, a heart attack or heart failure before cancer.
  • Have high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol.
  • Smoke or have smoked, or have extra weight.
  • Are older, or were treated for cancer as a child, teen or young adult.
  • Are receiving higher total doses of an anthracycline, or more than one treatment that can affect the heart.
  • Had radiation to the chest, especially on the left side or combined with chemotherapy.

Knowing your risk helps your team decide how closely to watch.

Prevention of Cardiotoxicity

Not every heart effect can be prevented, and the steps below lower the chances and help catch changes early.

  • A heart check before treatment. Your team may order an echocardiogram, an ECG and blood tests to know your starting point.
  • Treating heart risks you already have, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.
  • Choosing and adjusting treatment with the heart in mind. For some patients, the care team may limit the total anthracycline dose, use a form of the medicine that is gentler on the heart, or add a heart-protecting medicine called dexrazoxane.
  • Careful radiation planning, such as shaping the beams and holding a deep breath during treatment to move the heart away from the beam.
  • Staying active, eating well and not smoking.

Diagnosis of Cardiotoxicity

Your heart is checked before, during and after treatment.

  • Echocardiogram. A painless ultrasound of the heart that measures how well it pumps, often reported as the ejection fraction. Strain imaging can show small changes before the ejection fraction drops.
  • MUGA scan. A nuclear scan that measures how much blood the heart pumps with each beat.
  • Cardiac MRI. Detailed pictures of the heart muscle, useful when inflammation or scarring is suspected.
  • ECG. A tracing of the heart's rhythm, used to check for rhythm changes.
  • Blood tests. Troponin and BNP levels can rise when the heart is under strain.

Treatment Options for Cardiotoxicity

Medicines

Medicines used for other heart conditions work well here. Beta blockers, ACE inhibitors and similar blood pressure medicines can help a weakened heart recover and protect it during treatment. Other medicines control blood pressure, heart rhythm or blood clots. Myocarditis from immunotherapy is treated with steroids that slow the immune attack.

Adjusting Cancer Treatment

Your oncologist and cardiologist decide together whether to continue, pause, lower the dose or change a cancer medicine. Many people finish their full cancer treatment with heart medicines and closer monitoring.

Procedures

When radiation has narrowed an artery or damaged a valve years later, a procedure can open the artery or repair or replace the valve.

Your plan is your own, made with your oncologist and cardiologist together. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Cardiotoxicity

During treatment. Keep every heart test, and take heart medicines as prescribed, even when you feel well. Check your weight each morning and your blood pressure at home if your team asks you to.

After treatment. Some heart effects appear years later, so keep a written summary of the cancer treatments you received, including medicine names and any radiation, and share it with every doctor you see. Ask how often your heart should be checked.

Every day. Regular activity, a heart-healthy diet, a healthy weight and not smoking all protect the heart.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Tell your team about any new tiredness, swelling or change in your heartbeat, even if it seems small. Bring your home weight and blood pressure log, a list of every medicine and supplement you take, and your questions: whether your treatment can affect your heart, which tests you will have and when, what your results mean, and who to call about heart symptoms.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I have to stop my cancer treatment?

Usually not. Most heart changes are found early on routine tests and can be managed with heart medicines, closer monitoring or a dose change while cancer treatment continues.

Can heart damage from cancer treatment get better?

Often, yes. A weakened heart frequently improves with heart medicines, especially when the change is found early. Some changes are lasting and are managed long term.

Do I need to see a cardiologist?

If you have heart disease or risk factors, or a test shows a change, your oncologist may involve a cardiologist. You can also ask for one.

I finished treatment years ago. Should I still have my heart checked?

Survivors who had anthracyclines or radiation to the chest may benefit from heart checks for years, along with good control of blood pressure and cholesterol.

Is exercise safe for my heart during treatment?

For most people, light regular activity such as walking is safe and helpful. Ask your care team what level fits your treatment and test results.

Who Treats It and Where

Cardiotoxicity is cared for by oncologists and cardiologists working together, a field called cardio-oncology.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Medical and radiation oncologists who plan treatment with the heart in mind, with nurse navigators and survivorship care. Orlando Health has a cardio-oncology program that identifies patients at higher risk of heart damage, monitors them and starts treatment early when it is needed, while cancer treatment continues.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion care.

Care is given at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area. Learn more about chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy.

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Radiology

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Late Effects of Cancer Treatment.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/coping/survivorship/late-effects
  2. Cleveland Clinic. Cardiotoxicity: Cancer Treatment and the Heart.
    https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/chemotherapy-and-the-heart
  3. Armenian SH, et al. Prevention and Monitoring of Cardiac Dysfunction in Survivors of Adult Cancers: American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2017.
    https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2016.70.5400
  4. Lyon AR, et al. 2022 ESC Guidelines on cardio-oncology. European Heart Journal. 2022.
    https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/43/41/4229/6673995
  5. American Cancer Society. Heart Problems.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/heart-problems.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused by HPV, and screening finds changes years before they become cancer. Orlando Health care teams screen for it, diagnose it and treat it at every stage.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a Pap or HPV test came back abnormal, because you have had bleeding that is not normal for you, or because a doctor has just said the word cancer. An abnormal screening result is common, and most of the time it means a change that can be watched or treated long before cancer forms.

Cervical cancer grows slowly. It usually begins as precancer, cells on the surface of the cervix that look abnormal but have not grown deeper. That slow start is what makes it one of the most preventable cancers: the HPV vaccine protects against the virus that causes it, and regular screening finds changes early, when treatment is simplest. When cancer is found early, it can often be cured.

This page explains what cervical cancer is, the signs to know, what raises the risk, how screening and diagnosis work, and the treatment options at each stage.

What Is Cervical Cancer?

Cervical cancer forms when cells in the cervix grow out of control. It is one of the gynecologic cancers. In the United States, about 13,000 women are diagnosed with it each year, most often between 35 and 64, and deaths from it have fallen sharply since screening became routine.

The two main kinds are:

  • Squamous cell carcinoma: starts in the thin, flat cells that cover the outer part of the cervix. Most cervical cancers are this kind.
  • Adenocarcinoma: starts in the gland cells that line the canal of the cervix.

Before cancer, there is usually precancer, called cervical dysplasia or cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). Treating precancer stops cancer from forming.

Symptoms of Cervical Cancer

Precancer and early cervical cancer usually cause no symptoms, which is why screening matters even when you feel well. As cancer grows, signs can include:

  • Vaginal bleeding after sex, between periods or after menopause.
  • Periods that are heavier or last longer than usual for you.
  • Discharge that is watery, bloody or has a strong odor.
  • Pain during sex.
  • Pain in the pelvis or lower back.

These symptoms have many causes far more common than cancer, and a visit is how you find out.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Heavy vaginal bleeding that soaks through a pad or more every hour.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, coughing up blood or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Swelling, pain or warmth in one leg.
  • Pain or burning when you pass urine, or blood in your urine.
  • Diarrhea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Cervical Cancer

Almost every cervical cancer is caused by a long-lasting infection with human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is very common and spreads through intimate skin-to-skin contact. Most people have it at some point, usually without knowing, and the body clears most infections on its own within a year or two. When a high-risk type of HPV stays for years, it can change the cells of the cervix, first into precancer and, over many more years, into cancer.

Risk Factors for Cervical Cancer

The main risk factor is a lasting infection with a high-risk type of HPV. Others make it harder for the body to clear HPV or add to its effect:

  • Smoking.
  • A weakened immune system, such as from HIV or medicines taken after an organ transplant.
  • Not having regular screening.
  • Taking birth control pills for five years or more.
  • Having three or more full-term pregnancies, or a first full-term pregnancy before 20.
  • A past chlamydia infection.
  • A mother who took the medicine DES while pregnant.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get cervical cancer.

Prevention of Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers you can largely prevent.

  • The HPV vaccine. It is recommended for girls and boys at 11 or 12, and can start at 9. Everyone through age 26 who was not vaccinated should get it. Adults 27 to 45 can decide with their doctor. The vaccine works best before any exposure to HPV.
  • Cervical cancer screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a Pap test every three years from 21 to 29. From 30 to 65, the choices are a Pap test every three years, an HPV test every five years, or both together every five years. The American Cancer Society prefers an HPV test every five years from 25 to 65. Keep screening after the vaccine, since it does not cover every cancer-causing type.
  • Not smoking, and using condoms.

Most people over 65 with normal past results can stop screening; ask your doctor what fits your history.

Diagnosis of Cervical Cancer

Most cervical cancers and precancers are found after an abnormal screening test. The next step is usually a colposcopy. Your doctor uses a lighted magnifier to look closely at the cervix and takes a small biopsy of any area that looks unusual, in the office.

Some people need a cone biopsy, which removes a cone-shaped piece of the cervix, often with a thin heated wire loop called LEEP. It can both find and remove a precancer.

If cancer is found, more tests show its stage:

  • A pelvic exam, sometimes under anesthesia.
  • An MRI of the pelvis.
  • A PET-CT scan or CT scan to check lymph nodes and other organs.

Treatment Options for Cervical Cancer

Your plan depends on the stage, the size of the tumor, your health and whether you hope to have children.

Procedures and Surgery

Precancer is removed with LEEP, a cone biopsy, freezing or laser treatment. A very small cancer may be removed with a cone biopsy alone. For most early cancers, the standard is a hysterectomy, which removes the uterus and cervix; a radical hysterectomy also removes the tissue around the cervix and the upper vagina. Nearby lymph nodes are checked or removed with lymph node removal.

For a small, early cancer in someone who hopes to become pregnant, a trachelectomy removes the cervix and leaves the uterus in place. Trachelectomy and surgery for precancer can often be done through small incisions with robotic surgery. For a radical hysterectomy, guidelines favor an open operation. Read more about cancer surgery.

Radiation and Medicines

For cancer that has grown beyond the cervix, the usual treatment is radiation therapy given with chemotherapy, called chemoradiation. Radiation comes from outside the body and from a source placed inside, near the cervix, called brachytherapy. Immunotherapy is added for some cancers, and targeted therapy and chemotherapy treat cancer that has spread or come back.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Cervical Cancer

A hysterectomy ends periods and pregnancy. Radiation to the pelvis can bring on menopause if the ovaries were still working, and can make the vagina narrower and drier; a vaginal dilator, used as your team shows you, helps keep it healthy. Ask about fertility before treatment begins, since some options, like freezing eggs, need to happen first. Swelling in the legs after lymph node removal can be eased with lymphedema therapy. Follow-up visits, with exams and sometimes Pap tests or imaging, continue for several years. Cancer rehabilitation, counseling and support groups help with energy and sexual health.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new bleeding, pain or side effects. Bring your medicines, past screening results and your questions: what stage the cancer is, whether surgery or chemoradiation is the better fit and why, how treatment affects fertility and sex, and what follow-up will look like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does an abnormal Pap test mean I have cancer?

No. Most abnormal results show HPV or a minor change that clears by itself or is treated as precancer. Your doctor will tell you whether you need a repeat test, a colposcopy or treatment.

Can I still have children after cervical cancer?

Sometimes. For a small, early cancer, a cone biopsy or trachelectomy can preserve the uterus. Ask about fertility before treatment starts.

I had the HPV vaccine. Do I still need screening?

Yes. The vaccine protects against the types that cause most cervical cancers, and screening finds changes from the few types it does not cover.

Will treatment bring on menopause?

It can. A hysterectomy alone usually leaves the ovaries working. Radiation to the pelvis or removal of the ovaries brings on menopause, and your team can help with the symptoms.

Should my partner be tested for HPV?

There is no approved HPV test for men. Most infections clear without treatment, and the HPV vaccine is recommended for boys and men through 26.

Who Treats It and Where

Cervical cancer is cared for by gynecologists, gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and nurse navigators.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Gynecologic Cancer Center treats cervical cancer with gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners and oncology nurses, and offers robotic surgery, fertility-sparing surgery including trachelectomy, radiation, chemotherapy and integrative medicine. It partners with Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies for surgery.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for cervical cancer close to home.

Screening with Pap and HPV tests is offered by the obstetrics and gynecology practice at Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health.

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Cancer

Gynecologic and radiation oncologists treat cervical cancer with surgery, chemoradiation, brachytherapy and immunotherapy.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists read Pap tests, HPV results and cervical biopsies to tell precancer from cancer and name its type.

Learn More About Pathology
Women's

Gynecologists run Pap and HPV screening, colposcopy and LEEP, finding and treating precancer before it turns to cancer.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancers
Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or...

Learn More About Ovarian Cancer
Uterine Cancer

Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that...

Learn More About Uterine Cancer
Treatments
Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer Screening
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
Trachelectomy

A trachelectomy removes the cervix while keeping the uterus, so a person treated for small, early cervical cancer may still...

Learn More About Trachelectomy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Cervical Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/cervical/patient/cervical-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Cervical Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/cervical-cancer.html
  3. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Cervical Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/cervical-cancer-screening
  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV Vaccination Recommendations.
    https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/hpv/hcp/recommendations.html
  5. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Cervical Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find polyps and remove them before they turn into cancer. Found early, colon cancer is very treatable, and Orlando Health care teams screen for it and treat it.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a screening test came back abnormal, because a colonoscopy found something that needs a closer look, or because a doctor has just said the words colon cancer. Each of those moments brings a lot to take in. Many colon cancers today are found early, through screening, when treatment works best.

Colon cancer usually grows slowly, over many years, from a polyp on the inner wall of the colon. That slow start is why screening matters so much: a colonoscopy can find a polyp and remove it in the same visit. When cancer is found, its stage and the features of the tumor shape the plan, which often starts with surgery and may add medicine. Many people go on to live full lives after treatment.

Colon cancer and rectal cancer are often grouped together as colorectal cancer. They share causes, screening and many treatments, and rectal cancer has its own page because its treatment differs in important ways.

This page explains what colon cancer is, the signs to watch for, what raises the risk, how it is found and treated, and what life with it can look like.

What Is Colon Cancer?

The colon is the longest part of the large intestine. Colon cancer forms when cells in its inner lining grow out of control. Together with rectal cancer, it is one of the most common cancers in the United States. Most cases are in people over 50, and the number of cases in adults under 55 has been rising for several decades.

The main kinds are:

  • Adenocarcinoma: starts in the gland cells that line the colon. More than 9 in 10 colon cancers are this kind.
  • Neuroendocrine (carcinoid) tumors: start in hormone-making cells and usually grow slowly. They have their own page, neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Rarer kinds, such as lymphomas and sarcomas, which are treated differently.

Symptoms of Colon Cancer

Early colon cancer often causes no symptoms, which is why screening matters even when you feel well. When signs appear, they can include:

  • A change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation or narrower stools, that lasts more than a few days.
  • Blood in the stool, bright red or very dark, or bleeding from the rectum.
  • Belly pain, cramps, gas or bloating that does not go away.
  • A feeling that your bowel does not empty all the way.
  • Tiredness or weakness, often from a low red blood cell count caused by slow bleeding.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain.

Hemorrhoids cause some of the same signs, so have any of them checked rather than waiting for a screening date.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Severe belly pain, or a swollen, hard belly with vomiting and no gas or bowel movement.
  • Heavy bleeding from the rectum.
  • Black, tarry stools.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • New blood in your stool.
  • Diarrhea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.
  • A stoma that changes color, swells or stops putting out stool.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Colon Cancer

Most colon cancers begin as a polyp, a small growth on the inner lining of the colon. Over 10 years or more, gene changes can turn some of a polyp's cells into cancer, which can grow into the colon wall and spread, most often to the liver or lungs. Most polyps never become cancer. Removing them stops the ones that would. Learn more about colorectal polyps.

About 5 percent of colon cancers come from an inherited gene change, such as Lynch syndrome or familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP).

Risk Factors for Colon Cancer

Some risk factors are part of who you are:

  • Getting older.
  • A personal history of polyps or colorectal cancer.
  • A parent, sibling or child with colorectal cancer or advanced polyps.
  • Lynch syndrome, FAP or another inherited syndrome.
  • Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis for eight years or more.
  • Being Black, American Indian or Alaska Native.

Others are linked to daily life:

  • A diet high in red and processed meat and low in fiber.
  • Not being physically active.
  • Excess weight.
  • Smoking.
  • Heavy drinking.
  • Type 2 diabetes.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get colon cancer.

Prevention of Colon Cancer

Colorectal cancer screening is the strongest step you can take, because it finds polyps before they become cancer. Most adults at average risk start at 45 and continue through 75. A colonoscopy every 10 years is one option; a stool test every one to three years, a sigmoidoscopy or a CT colonography every five years are others. Any abnormal result from another test is followed by a colonoscopy. If a parent, sibling or child had colorectal cancer, screening often starts at 40, or 10 years before their age at diagnosis.

Daily habits help too: eat plenty of vegetables, fruit and whole grains, limit red and processed meat, stay active, keep a healthy weight, do not smoke and limit alcohol.

Diagnosis of Colon Cancer

A colonoscopy is the main test. A thin, flexible tube with a camera shows the whole colon, and the doctor removes polyps or takes a biopsy of anything unusual for a pathologist to examine.

If cancer is found, more tests show its stage:

  • CT scan of the chest, belly and pelvis, to check the liver, lungs and lymph nodes.
  • MRI or a PET-CT scan, in some cases.
  • A CEA blood test, a tumor marker test used to follow treatment over time.
  • Molecular profiling of the tumor, which looks for changes such as MSI-high or KRAS that help choose medicines.

The stage runs from 0 to IV and is often final only after surgery.

Treatment Options for Colon Cancer

Your plan depends on the stage, the tumor's features, your health and what matters to you.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery is the main treatment. A very early cancer in a polyp can sometimes be removed during a colonoscopy; most people have a colectomy, which removes the part of the colon with the tumor and the nearby lymph nodes, then joins the ends. Many operations use small incisions, some with robotic surgery, which can shorten recovery. Some people need a colostomy, an opening on the belly for stool, often temporary.

When cancer has spread, tumors in the liver may be removed with a hepatectomy or destroyed with tumor ablation or radioembolization. Cancer spread within the belly lining may be treated with surgery and HIPEC, heated chemotherapy placed in the belly.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy, often after surgery for stage III cancer to lower the chance of return, and for cancer that has spread.
  • Targeted therapy, chosen by the tumor's gene changes.
  • Immunotherapy, for tumors that are MSI-high.

Radiation

Radiation therapy is used less often for colon cancer than for rectal cancer.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Colon Cancer

Recovery from surgery takes several weeks, and bowel habits may change for a while. An ostomy nurse teaches stoma care. Chemotherapy can bring tiredness, nausea and numb hands and feet, and your team can ease each one. A nurse navigator helps coordinate visits. After treatment come follow-up visits, CEA blood tests, CT scans and colonoscopies for several years, because most returns happen in the first few years. Cancer rehabilitation and support groups help too.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new bleeding, pain or side effects. Bring your medicines, your family history of cancer and polyps, and your questions: what stage the cancer is, what each treatment is for, whether you will need a stoma, and how your follow-up will work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is colon cancer curable?

Often, yes. Found before it spreads, it is cured by surgery alone in many people.

Will I need a colostomy?

Most people do not need a permanent one. Some have a temporary stoma while the bowel heals.

Should my family be screened?

Yes. A parent, sibling or child of someone with colorectal cancer often starts screening at 40, or earlier. Genetic counseling can help if several relatives had it or you were diagnosed young.

Can I get colon cancer if I am under 45?

Yes, and cases in younger adults are rising. Rectal bleeding or a lasting change in bowel habits needs a visit at any age.

What foods should I eat after surgery?

Many people start with soft, low-fiber foods and add fiber back slowly, guided by a dietitian.

Who Treats It and Where

Colon cancer is cared for by gastroenterologists, colon and rectal surgeons, oncologists and nurse navigators.

The Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute works with the Cancer Institute on colon cancer surgery.

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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Related Pages

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Cancer

Medical, surgical and radiation oncologists stage colon cancer and plan surgery, chemotherapy and targeted medicines.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons remove colon cancer, often through small incisions or with robotic help.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find colon cancer early with screening colonoscopy and take the biopsy that confirms it.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Conditions
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Treatments
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

Learn More About Colorectal Cancer Screening
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of...

Learn More About Sigmoidoscopy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colon-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Colorectal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Colorectal Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/colorectalcancer.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening (2021).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  5. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Colon Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless, though some can turn into cancer over many years. A colonoscopy finds them and removes them, and Orlando Health care teams offer screening and polyp care.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a colonoscopy found a polyp, because a stool test came back abnormal, or because a relative was told they had polyps and you want to know what that means for you. Finding a polyp is common. It is also good news in its own way: a polyp found and removed is one that cannot grow into cancer later.

Polyps form when cells in the lining of the large intestine grow more than they should. Most stay small and never cause trouble. A few kinds can slowly change, over 10 years or more, into colorectal cancer, and there is no way to tell for sure by looking which ones will. That is why doctors remove polyps when they find them and send them to a lab.

This page explains the kinds of polyps, who gets them, how they are found and removed, and what follow-up looks like after removal.

What Are Colorectal Polyps?

A polyp is a clump of cells on the inner wall of the colon or rectum. Some are flat, and some grow on a short stalk like a mushroom. Polyps are found in about 20 to 30 percent of adults, and they become more common with age.

The main kinds are:

  • Adenomas: the most common kind that can become cancer. Tubular adenomas are the usual type; tubulovillous and villous adenomas have a higher chance of change.
  • Serrated polyps: include sessile serrated lesions, which are often flat and harder to see, and can become cancer.
  • Hyperplastic polyps: usually small and very unlikely to become cancer.
  • Inflammatory polyps: linked to long-term inflammation from Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis. They are not cancer themselves.

The larger a polyp is, and the more adenomas a person has, the higher the chance that one holds or will develop cancer.

Symptoms of Colorectal Polyps

Most polyps cause no symptoms, which is why screening finds most of them. When there are signs, they can include:

  • Blood in the stool or on toilet paper, often without pain.
  • A change in bowel habits, such as constipation or diarrhea lasting more than a week.
  • Stool that looks black or streaked with red.
  • Belly cramps or pain, with a large polyp.
  • Tiredness, from a low red blood cell count caused by slow bleeding.

Any of these can come from other causes, such as hemorrhoids, and a doctor's visit is how you find out.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Heavy bleeding from the rectum, or passing large clots, including in the days after a polyp is removed.
  • Severe belly pain, or a hard, swollen belly, after a colonoscopy.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or vomiting blood.
  • Black, tarry stools.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A small amount of blood in your stool that keeps coming back after a polyp is removed.
  • Belly pain or bloating after a colonoscopy that is getting worse rather than better.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or chills, in the days after a colonoscopy.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Colorectal Polyps

The lining of the colon replaces its cells all the time. Polyps form when changes in a cell's genes let it grow and divide more than it should. Most of these changes build up with age, and in most people no single cause is found. A few inherited conditions, such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and Lynch syndrome, cause polyps or cancer to form at a younger age.

Risk Factors for Colorectal Polyps

You are more likely to have polyps if you:

  • Are 45 or older.
  • Have had polyps or colorectal cancer before.
  • Have a parent, sibling or child who had polyps or colorectal cancer.
  • Have FAP, Lynch syndrome or another inherited syndrome.
  • Have Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis.
  • Smoke or drink heavily.
  • Have excess weight or are not active.
  • Eat a lot of red and processed meat and little fiber.
  • Have type 2 diabetes.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will have polyps.

Prevention of Colorectal Polyps

You cannot prevent every polyp, and you can keep polyps from turning into cancer by finding them early. Colorectal cancer screening starts at 45 for most adults, and earlier for people with a family history or inflammatory bowel disease. Daily habits lower the risk too: eat plenty of vegetables, fruit and whole grains, limit red and processed meat, stay active, keep a healthy weight, do not smoke and limit alcohol.

Diagnosis of Colorectal Polyps

A colonoscopy is the main test, and it can find and remove polyps in the same visit. You drink a prep the day before to empty the colon, and you are sedated during the exam, which usually takes less than an hour. Other screening tests can point to a polyp:

  • Stool tests, which look for hidden blood or changed DNA in a sample you collect at home.
  • CT colonography, sometimes called a virtual colonoscopy, a CT scan of the colon.
  • Sigmoidoscopy, which looks at the lower part of the colon only.

An abnormal result from any of these is followed by a colonoscopy. Every polyp removed goes to a pathologist, who says what kind it is.

Treatment Options for Colorectal Polyps

The usual treatment is to take the polyp out, because there is no way to be sure by sight which ones would become cancer.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Polypectomy during colonoscopy. Most polyps are removed with a small wire loop or forceps passed through the scope. It does not hurt, and you go home the same day.
  • Endoscopic mucosal resection. For a larger or flat polyp, the doctor lifts it with an injection of fluid and removes it through the scope. A large polyp may take more than one session.
  • Surgery. A polyp too large to remove through the scope, or one that holds cancer, may need a colectomy, removing that part of the colon, often through small incisions or with robotic surgery.

If a polyp holds cancer, care follows the colon cancer or rectal cancer path. People with FAP may need surgery to remove the colon to prevent cancer, planned with genetic counseling.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Colorectal Polyps

Once a polyp is fully removed it rarely comes back, and new polyps form in about a third of people. Your doctor sets your next colonoscopy by what was found, often from three to 10 years. Keep a copy of your pathology report and tell your family, since your results may change when they should be screened.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if you see blood in your stool or your bowel habits change between colonoscopies. Ask what kind of polyps you had, how many, how large, when your next colonoscopy is due, and whether your family should start screening sooner.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does having a polyp mean I have cancer?

No. Most polyps are not cancer, and removing them is how cancer is prevented. The lab report tells you what kind yours was.

How long does it take a polyp to become cancer?

Usually 10 years or more, and most never do. That slow pace is why screening at regular intervals works.

Will I feel the polyp being removed?

No. You are sedated for the colonoscopy, and the lining of the colon does not sense the removal.

Can polyps come back?

A fully removed polyp rarely regrows, and new ones can form. Follow-up colonoscopies find them early.

Should my children or siblings be checked?

If you had advanced polyps, or polyps at a young age, your close relatives may need to start screening earlier. Share your report with them and their doctors.

Who Treats It and Where

Polyps are found and removed by gastroenterologists and colon and rectal surgeons, with pathologists reading every sample. When a polyp holds cancer, cancer specialists join the team.

The Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute removes polyps during colonoscopy and sets follow-up at specific intervals. Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health colorectal surgeons in St. Petersburg remove and follow polyps, and its gastroenterologists offer screening colonoscopy at offices across the Tampa Bay area.

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Cancer

When a polyp holds cancer, oncologists join the team to stage it and plan any further treatment.

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Colon & Rectal

Colorectal surgeons remove large or hard-to-reach polyps, and polyps that hold cancer, by scope or surgery.

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Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find and remove polyps during colonoscopy and set the date of your next one.

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Conditions
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

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Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

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Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

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Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

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Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

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Treatments
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

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Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of...

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Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

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References

  1. American Cancer Society. Understanding Your Pathology Report: Colon Polyps.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/biopsy-and-cytology-tests/understanding-your-pathology-report/colon-pathology/colon-polyps-sessile-or-traditional-serrated-adenomas.html
  2. MedlinePlus. Colonic Polyps.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000266.htm
  3. National Cancer Institute. Colorectal Cancer Prevention (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colorectal-prevention-pdq
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening (2021).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  5. Gupta S, et al. Recommendations for Follow-Up After Colonoscopy and Polypectomy: US Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer. Gastroenterology. 2020.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32039982/

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in hormone-making cells spread through the body. Thyroid cancer is the most common, and most are very treatable. Each type has its own signs and tests, and surgery is often the first treatment.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a lump was found in your neck, a blood test showed a hormone level that was off, or a scan for something else found a spot on a gland. You may already have a diagnosis, or you may still be waiting on results. Either way, it helps to know where your question fits.

Your endocrine system is a set of glands and cells that make hormones, the chemical messengers that control your metabolism, blood pressure, blood sugar, calcium and growth. Endocrine cancer is the name for any cancer that starts in these glands or cells. Each one behaves differently, and most have a page of their own in this library with their signs, causes, tests and treatments.

This page shows you the family, explains how doctors find out which type a person has, and lists the warning signs that call for care right away. Most growths found in endocrine glands are not cancer, and the most common endocrine cancer, thyroid cancer, is usually very treatable.

What Are Endocrine Cancers?

The endocrine glands include the thyroid in the front of the neck, the four parathyroid glands just behind it, the two adrenal glands above the kidneys and the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. Hormone-making cells called neuroendocrine cells are also spread through the lungs, stomach, intestines and pancreas. A cancer in any of these is an endocrine cancer.

Growths here are common, and most are benign. Lumps in the thyroid and spots on the adrenal glands are often found on scans, and most of them are not cancer. Many need only a test and a later check.

Some make extra hormones. A tumor that makes hormones can cause symptoms anywhere in the body, such as high blood pressure, weight changes, sweating, flushing or high calcium. Others make no hormones and are found as a lump or on a scan.

Some run in families. Inherited conditions such as multiple endocrine neoplasia types 1 and 2, von Hippel-Lindau syndrome and Li-Fraumeni syndrome raise the chance of several of these cancers. Genetic counseling can tell you whether you have one.

Radiation can raise the risk. Radiation to the head or neck, especially in childhood, raises the chance of thyroid cancer.

Thyroid cancer is more common in women. About three in four people with thyroid cancer are women, and it is often found between ages 20 and 55.

Conditions in This Family

  • Thyroid cancer. Starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. Papillary and follicular thyroid cancers grow slowly and are usually cured. Medullary thyroid cancer is rarer and can run in families. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is rare and grows quickly, and it is most often found after 60.
  • Thyroid nodules. Lumps in the thyroid gland. Most are benign, and testing tells which few need treatment.
  • Parathyroid cancer. Starts in one of the four tiny glands that control calcium. It is very rare, and its usual first sign is a high calcium level.
  • Adrenal cancer. Starts in one of the two glands above the kidneys. It is rare and is found most often in young children and in adults in their 40s and 50s. Pheochromocytoma, a tumor of the inner part of the gland that makes adrenaline, is covered there too.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors. Start in hormone-making cells anywhere in the body, most often in the lungs, appendix, small intestine, rectum and pancreas. Many grow slowly.
  • Pituitary tumors. Start in the pituitary gland at the base of the brain. Almost all are benign, and they can affect vision or hormone levels. Learn more about brain tumors.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

The steps usually follow a symptom, a lump or a test result, and they are much the same across the family.

A visit and an exam. Your doctor asks about your health and your family's, and about changes that could come from hormones, such as weight, energy, mood, sweating or blood pressure. They feel your neck for lumps.

Blood and urine tests. These measure hormone levels, such as thyroid hormone, calcium and parathyroid hormone, cortisol, or the substances adrenaline breaks down into. A hormone level that is too high often points to which gland is involved.

Imaging. An ultrasound is the main test for the thyroid and parathyroid glands. A CT scan or MRI shows the adrenal glands, the pancreas and whether a cancer has spread. A PET/CT scan, sometimes with a special tracer, helps find neuroendocrine tumors.

A biopsy. A pathologist studies cells or tissue under a microscope to name the cancer and its type. A thin needle guided by ultrasound is the usual test for a thyroid nodule. For adrenal and parathyroid tumors, a needle biopsy is often avoided, and the diagnosis is made after surgery.

Genetic counseling. Because several of these cancers can be inherited, testing may help you understand your risk for other cancers and what it means for your children.

Screening. There is no routine screening for endocrine cancers in people without symptoms. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends against thyroid cancer screening in adults without symptoms. People with an inherited syndrome may have regular checks planned with their doctor.

Treatment depends on the type. Surgery to remove the tumor, and sometimes part or all of the gland, is often the first treatment, and many operations are done through small incisions. Radioactive iodine treats some thyroid cancers. Radiation therapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy and hormone-blocking medicines are used in different combinations. Each member's page explains its options. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on each condition's page.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

See your doctor if you have any of these for two weeks or more, or if they are not normal for you:

  • A lump or swelling in your neck.
  • Hoarseness, or trouble swallowing.
  • Blood pressure that is high and hard to control, especially at a young age.
  • Weight gain or loss you cannot explain.
  • Flushing, sweating, or diarrhea that keeps coming back.
  • Thirst, tiredness or constipation that could come from high calcium.

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to every cancer in this family; each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • A sudden, severe headache with a pounding heartbeat and heavy sweating.
  • Fainting, a seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Neck swelling after surgery that makes it hard to breathe or swallow.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Tingling around your mouth or in your fingertips after neck surgery.
  • Vomiting or diarrhea that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Blood pressure readings much higher than your usual numbers.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at a surgical incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a lump on my thyroid likely to be cancer?

Usually it is not. Most thyroid nodules are benign. An ultrasound, and sometimes a needle biopsy, tells your doctor which ones need treatment.

What does an endocrinologist do?

An endocrinologist is a doctor who specializes in glands and hormones. They test hormone levels, help find the cause of a growth and manage hormone medicines before and after treatment.

Will I need to take hormone pills after treatment?

It depends on the gland. People who have the whole thyroid removed take thyroid hormone pills for life. After adrenal surgery, some people take steroid pills for a while.

Do these cancers run in families?

Some do. Medullary thyroid cancer, some adrenal tumors and some neuroendocrine tumors are linked to inherited conditions. Ask about genetic counseling if relatives have had them.

Are benign gland growths ever treated?

Sometimes. A benign growth that makes too much hormone, presses on the throat or keeps growing may be removed. Benign thyroid nodules can also be shrunk with radiofrequency ablation.

Who Treats It and Where

Endocrine cancers are treated by endocrinologists, endocrine and head and neck surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists and pathologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Endocrine Cancer Center treats cancers of the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands and neuroendocrine tumors with a team of fellowship-trained endocrinologists, surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses. Care includes hormone tests, imaging, biopsy, genetic testing, minimally invasive surgery, minimally invasive radioguided parathyroidectomy, thyroid radiofrequency ablation for benign nodules, radiation therapy, radioactive iodine, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. It sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida. Its Head and Neck Cancer Center also treats thyroid cancer.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Treats neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas and intestines.
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Cancer

Cancer teams treat tumors of the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands and neuroendocrine tumors.

Learn More About Cancer
Endocrinology

Endocrinologists find hormone changes that point to a gland tumor and manage hormone pills after treatment.

Learn More About Endocrinology
Pathology

Pathologists study needle samples and removed glands to say whether a growth is cancer and which type.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or...

Learn More About Thyroid Cancer
Thyroid Nodules

A thyroid nodule is a lump in the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. Nodules are very common, and most are harmless. An...

Learn More About Thyroid Nodules
Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very...

Learn More About Parathyroid Cancer
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Endocrine and Neuroendocrine Tumors.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/endocrine
  2. American Cancer Society. Thyroid Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/thyroid-cancer.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Adrenal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/adrenal-cancer.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Thyroid Cancer: Screening. 2017.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/thyroid-cancer-screening
  5. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most common early sign is food that feels stuck when you swallow. Treatment often combines chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, planned by one team.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Hearing that you may have esophageal cancer brings a lot of questions at once: how serious it is, whether you will still be able to eat, and what treatment will ask of you. This page answers them in order, and your care team will fill in what applies to you.

Esophageal cancer begins when cells in the lining of the esophagus grow out of control. It is less common than many other cancers, and it is often found once swallowing has become hard. That is why a new problem swallowing, especially with weight loss, is always worth a visit to your doctor.

Treatment depends on the type of cancer, where it is and how far it has spread. Very early cancers can sometimes be removed through a scope. Many people have chemotherapy and radiation first, then surgery to remove part of the esophagus, and others are treated with radiation and medicines alone. Throughout, a dietitian and the rest of your team help you keep eating and keep your strength.

What Is Esophageal Cancer?

The esophagus is a muscular tube about 10 inches long that runs behind your windpipe and heart. Esophageal cancer starts in its inner lining and can grow into the deeper layers, nearby lymph nodes and other organs. There are two main types:

  • Adenocarcinoma forms in the lower esophagus, often near the stomach. It is the most common type in the United States and is linked to long-term acid reflux, Barrett's esophagus and excess weight.
  • Squamous cell carcinoma forms in the flat cells lining the upper and middle esophagus. It is linked most closely to tobacco and alcohol.

Cancer where the esophagus meets the stomach, at the gastroesophageal junction, is often treated like esophageal cancer. Esophageal cancer is most common in adults over 55 and in men.

Symptoms of Esophageal Cancer

Early esophageal cancer often causes no symptoms. As it grows, you may notice:

  • Trouble swallowing, with food that feels stuck in the throat or chest, first with solid food and later with softer foods.
  • Weight loss without trying.
  • Pain, pressure or burning in the chest, or pain when swallowing.
  • Heartburn or indigestion that is new or getting worse.
  • Hoarseness or a cough that does not go away.
  • Vomiting or bringing food back up.

Many of these have common causes other than cancer, so a doctor's visit is the way to find out.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Vomiting blood or material that looks like coffee grounds, or black, tarry stools.
  • Food stuck so that you cannot swallow your own saliva.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Swallowing that gets harder over a few days, or being unable to keep down liquids for a day.
  • Coughing or choking when you eat or drink.
  • A feeding tube that is blocked, leaking or has come out.
  • Nausea, mouth sores or diarrhea that keep you from eating or drinking.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer begins with changes in the DNA of cells lining the esophagus. Long-term irritation is behind most of those changes. With adenocarcinoma, the irritation usually comes from stomach acid washing back into the esophagus for years. With squamous cell carcinoma, it usually comes from tobacco and alcohol. Often there is no single cause anyone can point to.

Risk Factors for Esophageal Cancer

You are more likely to develop esophageal cancer if you:

  • Have long-term GERD or Barrett's esophagus.
  • Have obesity, which raises the chance of chronic reflux.
  • Smoke or use other tobacco.
  • Drink alcohol heavily, especially together with smoking.
  • Are over 55, or are male.
  • Have achalasia, a swallowing disorder.
  • Often drink very hot liquids, or eat few fruits and vegetables.

Most people with these risk factors never develop esophageal cancer.

Prevention of Esophageal Cancer

You can lower your risk:

  • Do not smoke, and get help to quit if you do.
  • Limit alcohol.
  • Reach and keep a healthy weight.
  • Treat reflux that lasts, and see your doctor about heartburn that comes back week after week.
  • If you have Barrett's esophagus, keep your scheduled checks, since treating early changes lowers the chance of cancer.

There is no routine screening test for people at average risk.

Diagnosis of Esophageal Cancer

Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and examine you, then order tests:

  • Upper endoscopy. A thin, flexible tube with a camera looks at the lining of the esophagus while you are sedated, and the doctor takes samples for a biopsy. The biopsy confirms the diagnosis and the type.
  • Endoscopic ultrasound. A scope with an ultrasound probe shows how deep the cancer has grown and whether nearby lymph nodes are involved.
  • Imaging. A CT scan and a PET-CT scan show whether the cancer has spread.
  • Barium swallow. X-rays taken as you drink a chalky liquid outline the esophagus.
  • Tumor testing. Molecular profiling of the biopsy looks for features, such as HER2, that guide medicine choices.

These results set the stage, from 0 to IV, which guides treatment.

Treatment Options for Esophageal Cancer

Your care team, often thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and gastroenterologists, reviews your case together and recommends a plan.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Endoscopic resection. Very early cancers in the lining can be removed through a scope.
  • Esophageal surgery. An esophagectomy removes the part of the esophagus with cancer and nearby lymph nodes, and the stomach is reshaped into a tube to take its place. It can often be done with robotic surgery through small incisions. Most people stay in the hospital about a week, and full recovery can take a few months.
  • Stents. A tube placed inside the esophagus can keep it open so you can swallow.

Medicines and Radiation

Clinical trials may be an option for some people, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists them. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Esophageal Cancer

Eating is often the biggest daily challenge. A dietitian can help with soft foods, nutrition drinks and, for some people, a feeding tube for a while during treatment. After an esophagectomy, most people eat smaller meals more often, stay upright while eating and for a while after, and sleep with the head of the bed raised. Walking each day, help for fatigue and support for the emotional side of a diagnosis all help. Integrative medicine, counseling and support groups are open to you and your family. Follow-up visits and scans continue for several years after treatment.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call your team if eating becomes harder, your weight keeps dropping, or a side effect is not improving. Bring your medicine list, a record of what you are able to eat, and your questions: the type and stage of your cancer, the goal of each treatment, how surgery will change eating, and who to call after hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can esophageal cancer be cured?

Yes, especially when it is found early and can be removed with surgery or treated through a scope. For more advanced cancer, treatment can control the cancer and ease symptoms, and your team will explain the goal of your plan.

Will I be able to eat normally after surgery?

Most people return to eating by mouth, with smaller, more frequent meals. It takes time to adjust, and a dietitian helps you through it.

Why do I need chemotherapy and radiation before surgery?

Treatment before surgery can shrink the cancer, making it easier to remove completely, and lowers the chance that it comes back.

Is heartburn a sign of esophageal cancer?

Heartburn is very common and rarely means cancer. Heartburn that lasts for years can lead to Barrett's esophagus, which raises the risk, so talk with your doctor about reflux that keeps coming back.

Will I need a feeding tube?

Some people do, for a while, to keep their strength up during treatment or after surgery. Many never need one. Your team will tell you if it is likely for you.

Who Treats It and Where

Esophageal cancer is treated by thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and gastroenterologists working as one team.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center treats esophageal cancer with thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists, pulmonologists and gastroenterologists, offering robotic esophagectomy, radiation including proton therapy, immunotherapy, nutrition support and integrative medicine. It sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Cares for cancer where the stomach meets the esophagus.
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Surgeons and medical and radiation oncologists plan chemotherapy, radiation and surgery for esophageal cancer together.

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Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find esophageal cancer with an upper endoscopy and biopsy, and stage it with endoscopic ultrasound.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Radiologists read the CT and PET-CT scans that show whether esophageal cancer has spread and how it responds.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

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Lung Nodules

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Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

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Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Esophageal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/esophageal/patient/esophageal-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Esophageal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/esophagus-cancer.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Esophageal Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patients/guidelines/content/PDF/esophageal-patient.pdf
  4. MedlinePlus. Esophageal Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/esophagealcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often found after gallbladder surgery for gallstones. Orlando Health care teams diagnose it and treat it with surgery, medicine and radiation.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a report after gallbladder surgery found cancer, because a scan showed a growth in your gallbladder, or because yellowing of your skin led to tests. Gallbladder cancer is uncommon, so most people have never heard much about it, and the questions can come all at once.

Many gallbladder cancers are found by chance, when a gallbladder removed for gallstones is examined in the lab. Cancers found this way are often early, and a second operation can sometimes remove any cancer left nearby. Others are found later, when they cause symptoms, and treatment then aims to control the cancer and ease those symptoms. The stage and your overall health guide the plan, which a team of specialists makes together with you and the people close to you.

This page explains what gallbladder cancer is, the signs, what raises the risk, how it is diagnosed and treated, and what life with it can look like.

What Is Gallbladder Cancer?

The gallbladder is a pear-shaped organ on the right side of the belly, just under the liver. It stores bile, a fluid the liver makes to help digest fat, and releases it through the bile ducts into the small intestine. Gallbladder cancer starts in the cells that line the inside of the gallbladder. Almost all gallbladder cancers are adenocarcinomas, which start in gland cells.

It is a rare cancer in the United States. It is more common in women than in men and is most often diagnosed in people in their 70s. Cancer of the nearby bile ducts is a related cancer, often grouped with it as biliary tract cancer, and treated in many of the same ways.

Gallbladder polyps are small growths on the inside of the gallbladder. Most are harmless and are simply watched; a larger one may be removed with the gallbladder.

Symptoms of Gallbladder Cancer

Early gallbladder cancer rarely causes symptoms. When signs appear, they can include:

  • Yellow skin or eyes (jaundice), often with itching, dark urine and pale stools, when a tumor blocks a bile duct.
  • Pain in the upper right belly.
  • Nausea or vomiting.
  • A swollen belly or a lump you can feel on the right side.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain, or not feeling hungry.
  • Fever.

Gallstones cause many of the same signs and are far more common, so testing is how you find out.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Yellow skin or eyes with a fever and shaking chills.
  • Severe pain in the upper belly that lasts more than a few hours.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Yellowing of your skin or eyes that is new or getting deeper.
  • Itching, dark urine or pale stools that are new, especially if you have a bile duct stent.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts when changes in a cell's genes let it grow without the usual controls. Long-term irritation of the gallbladder lining, most often from gallstones and the inflammation they cause, is thought to play a part. Still, most people with gallstones never get gallbladder cancer.

Risk Factors for Gallbladder Cancer

Things that raise the risk include:

  • Gallstones, the most common risk factor, and long-term gallbladder inflammation. Learn more about cholecystitis.
  • A porcelain gallbladder, where the wall has filled with calcium.
  • Gallbladder polyps larger than about 1 centimeter.
  • Being a woman and getting older.
  • Excess weight.
  • Problems with the bile ducts present from birth, such as choledochal cysts, or primary sclerosing cholangitis.
  • Being of Mexican American or American Indian heritage.
  • A family history of gallbladder cancer.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get gallbladder cancer.

Diagnosis of Gallbladder Cancer

Some gallbladder cancers are found after gallbladder removal, when a pathologist examines the organ. When cancer is suspected first, tests may include:

  • Blood tests of liver function and of tumor markers such as CA 19-9 and CEA, a tumor marker test.
  • Ultrasound, often the first scan of the gallbladder.
  • CT scan or MRI, including MRCP, an MRI of the bile ducts, to see the tumor and whether it has spread.
  • Endoscopic ultrasound, a scope with an ultrasound probe passed through the mouth, which can take a sample.
  • ERCP, a scope used to see the bile ducts and place a stent to open a blocked one.
  • Biopsy or laparoscopy, a look inside the belly through small incisions, to confirm cancer and its spread.

The stage, from 0 to IV, depends on how deep the tumor has grown and whether it has reached the liver, lymph nodes or beyond.

Treatment Options for Gallbladder Cancer

Your plan depends on the stage, whether the cancer can be removed, your health and what matters to you.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery offers the best chance of cure when all the cancer can be removed. A very early cancer found after gallbladder removal may need nothing more. Most others need an extended cholecystectomy, which removes the gallbladder, part of the liver next to it and nearby lymph nodes, sometimes with part of the bile duct. When cancer is found after an earlier gallbladder operation, a second surgery is often advised. Learn more about hepatectomy and cancer surgery.

When a tumor blocks the bile duct, a stent placed through a scope, or a bypass operation, lets bile drain again and eases jaundice and itching.

Medicines

Radiation

Radiation therapy, sometimes with chemotherapy, after surgery or to ease symptoms.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Gallbladder Cancer

Recovery after liver and gallbladder surgery takes several weeks. You can digest food without a gallbladder, and smaller, lower-fat meals help at first. A dietitian can help if eating or weight is hard. If you have a stent, learn the signs that it is blocked. A nurse navigator helps coordinate visits, and follow-up scans and blood tests continue after treatment. Palliative care eases pain, itching and nausea at any stage.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new yellowing, itching, pain, fever or side effects. Bring your pathology report from any gallbladder surgery, your medicines and your questions: what stage the cancer is, whether surgery is possible, what each treatment is for, and what to watch for with a stent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can gallbladder cancer be cured?

Yes, when it is found early and all of it can be removed with surgery. Many cancers found by chance after gallbladder removal are at this stage.

Do gallstones mean I will get gallbladder cancer?

No. Gallstones are very common and gallbladder cancer is rare. Most people with gallstones never get it.

Why would I need a second operation?

If cancer was found after your gallbladder was removed, a second operation can take out nearby liver and lymph nodes where cancer cells may remain, and shows the true stage.

What is a biliary stent?

A small tube placed in a bile duct through a scope, so bile can drain past a blockage. It eases jaundice and itching.

Can I live without a gallbladder?

Yes. Bile flows straight from the liver to the intestine, and most people eat normally after recovery.

Who Treats It and Where

Gallbladder cancer is cared for by surgical oncologists who operate on the liver and bile ducts, gastroenterologists who place stents, medical and radiation oncologists, and nurse navigators.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Medical, surgical and radiation oncologists who plan care together for cancers of the liver and bile ducts, with a multidisciplinary clinic whose conditions include gallbladder cancers and other biliary tumors.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators for gastrointestinal cancers, infusion, radiation, and survivorship and support services.
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Surgical, medical and radiation oncologists plan surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy for gallbladder cancer.

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Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists use endoscopic ultrasound and ERCP to sample a tumor and place stents that clear a blocked bile duct.

Learn More About Digestive Health
General Surgery

General surgeons remove gallbladders for gallstones, the operation after which many gallbladder cancers are first found.

Learn More About General Surgery
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Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

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Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

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Treatments
Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

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Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Gallbladder Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/gallbladder/patient/gallbladder-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Gallbladder Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/gallbladder-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Gallbladder Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/gallbladdercancer.html
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Gallbladder and Bile Duct Cancers.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva. Each type has its own signs, tests and treatments. Gynecologic oncologists treat all of them, with surgery, radiation and medicines, and with care to protect fertility when possible.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a Pap test came back abnormal, a scan found a mass on an ovary, or you have had bleeding that is not normal for you. You may already have a diagnosis, or you may be waiting on a result. Either way, it helps to know where your question fits.

Gynecologic cancer is the name for any cancer that starts in the female reproductive organs. Each of these cancers behaves differently, and each has its own page in this library with its signs, causes, tests and treatments. This page shows you the family, explains how doctors find out which type a person has, and lists the warning signs that call for care right away.

Gynecologic cancers can affect women of any age, though most are found after menopause. Several can be found early or even prevented, and specialists called gynecologic oncologists are trained to treat all of them.

What Are Gynecologic Cancers?

The female reproductive organs lie low in the belly, in the pelvis. They include the uterus and its lower end, the cervix; the two ovaries and fallopian tubes; the vagina; and the vulva, the outer part. A cancer in any of these is a gynecologic cancer.

They are common enough to know about. Uterine cancer is the most common, and ovarian and cervical cancers follow. Vaginal and vulvar cancers are rare.

Some can be prevented or found early. The HPV vaccine and regular cervical cancer screening prevent most cervical cancers. Bleeding after menopause, the most common sign of uterine cancer, often leads to an early diagnosis. Ovarian cancer has no screening test for women at average risk, so learning its warning signs helps you act early.

Some run in families. Inherited gene changes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, and Lynch syndrome, raise the chance of ovarian and uterine cancers. Genetic counseling can tell you whether you have one.

Treatment is often a team effort. Surgery, radiation and medicines are combined in different ways for each cancer, and many surgeries are done through small incisions.

Conditions in This Family

  • Cervical cancer. Starts in the cervix, the opening of the uterus. Nearly all cases are caused by long-lasting infection with HPV, and screening finds changes before they become cancer.
  • Ovarian cancer. Starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly, called the peritoneum. Many ovarian cancers are now thought to begin in the fallopian tubes, so the three are treated as one disease.
  • Uterine cancer. Starts in the uterus. Most begin in its lining, the endometrium, and are called endometrial cancer; a rarer type, uterine sarcoma, starts in the muscle wall.
  • Vaginal cancer. Starts in the vagina. It is rare and, like cervical cancer, is often linked to HPV.
  • Vulvar cancer. Starts in the skin of the vulva, often as an itchy patch, a lump or a sore that does not heal. It is rare and most common after 60.

Gestational trophoblastic disease, a rare growth that starts in tissue from a pregnancy, is also treated by gynecologic oncologists.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

Each cancer is found in its own way, and the steps usually follow a symptom or a screening result.

Screening. Cervical cancer has a routine screening test, cervical cancer screening with a Pap test, an HPV test or both. The other gynecologic cancers have none. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a Pap test every three years from 21 to 29, then from 30 to 65 a Pap test every three years, an HPV test every five years, or both together every five years. The American Cancer Society prefers an HPV test every five years from 25 to 65.

A pelvic exam and imaging. Your doctor feels for changes in the size or shape of the organs. A transvaginal ultrasound looks at the uterus and ovaries, and a CT scan, MRI or PET/CT scan shows whether a cancer has spread.

Looking more closely. A colposcopy uses a lighted magnifier to look at the cervix, vagina or vulva. A sample of the uterine lining can often be taken in the office.

A biopsy. A pathologist studies tissue under a microscope. This names the cancer, its type and its grade. For a mass on an ovary, the tissue is often taken during surgery.

Blood tests. A tumor marker test called CA-125 can help evaluate an ovarian mass and track treatment, though it is not a screening test on its own.

Treatment depends on the type. Surgery is the first step for many of these cancers, from a hysterectomy to a trachelectomy, which removes the cervix and can preserve the ability to carry a pregnancy. Robotic surgery lets many operations be done through small incisions. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and hormone therapy are used in different combinations. Each member's page explains its options. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on each condition's page.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

See your doctor if you have any of these for two weeks or more, or if they are not normal for you:

  • Bleeding after menopause, between periods or after sex.
  • Bloating, feeling full quickly, or pain in the belly, pelvis or back.
  • Needing to urinate more often or more urgently.
  • Itching, burning, a sore or a lump on the vulva.
  • Unusual discharge from the vagina.

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to every cancer in this family; each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Vaginal bleeding that will not stop, or that soaks a pad every hour with dizziness.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Sudden, severe belly pain, or a swollen belly with vomiting and no bowel movements.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Pain and swelling in one leg.
  • Vaginal bleeding heavier than your usual pattern.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at a surgical incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a gynecologic oncologist do?

A gynecologic oncologist is a gynecologist with extra years of training in cancers of the reproductive organs. They perform the surgery and often plan the chemotherapy, so one doctor can guide your care from start to finish.

Does an abnormal Pap test mean I have cancer?

Usually it does not. Most abnormal results show cell changes that can be watched or treated before they ever become cancer.

Can I still have children after treatment?

Sometimes. For certain early cancers, surgeries that spare the uterus or an ovary are possible. Ask about fertility before treatment starts, when there are the most choices.

Does the HPV vaccine protect against these cancers?

It protects against the HPV types behind most cervical cancers and many vaginal and vulvar cancers. It is recommended for everyone at 11 or 12 and can be given through age 26, and some adults up to 45 may benefit.

Should I have genetic testing?

Ask about it if you have ovarian cancer, or a family history of ovarian, breast, uterine or colon cancer. A result can guide your treatment and your relatives' screening.

Who Treats It and Where

Gynecologic cancers are treated by gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Gynecologic Cancer Center treats cervical, ovarian, uterine, vaginal and vulvar cancers with a team of gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners and oncology nurses. Care includes robotic surgery, fertility-sparing surgery for certain cancers, radiation, chemotherapy, integrative medicine, and a nurse navigator for gynecologic cancers. Its surgeons work with Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for cervical and ovarian cancer and uterine sarcoma.
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[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Related Pages

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Cancer

Gynecologic oncologists treat cancers of the cervix, ovaries, uterus, vagina and vulva with surgery, radiation and medicines.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists read Pap tests and biopsies to name the type and grade of a gynecologic cancer.

Learn More About Pathology
Women's

Gynecologists do the Pap and HPV tests and pelvic exams that find many of these cancers early.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or...

Learn More About Ovarian Cancer
Uterine Cancer

Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that...

Learn More About Uterine Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer Screening
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

Learn More About Tumor Marker Test

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Gynecologic Cancers.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/gynecologic
  2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gynecologic Cancers.
    https://www.cdc.gov/gynecologic-cancer/
  3. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Cervical Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/cervical-cancer-screening
  4. American Cancer Society. Guidelines for the Early Detection of Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/screening/american-cancer-society-guidelines-for-the-early-detection-of-cancer.html
  5. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head and neck. Tobacco, alcohol and HPV are the main causes of many of them. Specialist teams combine surgery, radiation and medicines, with care to protect speaking, swallowing and appearance.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a sore in your mouth has not healed, your voice has stayed hoarse, or a lump in your neck has not gone away. A dentist or doctor may have found something during a checkup, or you may already have a diagnosis and want to understand it. Either way, it helps to know where your question fits.

Head and neck cancer is the name for a group of cancers that start above the collarbone, outside the brain. Most begin in the thin, moist lining of the mouth, nose and throat. Each type behaves differently and is treated in its own way, and the thyroid and the skin have their own pages in this library.

This page shows you the family, explains how doctors find out which type a person has, and lists the warning signs that call for care right away. Many of these cancers can be found early by noticing changes that last more than a few weeks, and many can be prevented.

What Are Head and Neck Cancers?

The head and neck hold the structures you use to breathe, eat, speak and swallow: the lips and mouth, the throat, the voice box, the nose and sinuses, and the salivary glands that keep your mouth moist. The thyroid gland in the lower neck, the lymph nodes that run along the neck and the skin of the face and scalp are part of the region too. A cancer in any of these is a head and neck cancer.

Together they are fairly common. Head and neck cancers make up about 4 percent of cancers in the United States. They are more than twice as common in men and are found most often after 50.

Tobacco and alcohol are the biggest causes. Smoking, chewing tobacco and snuff, and heavy drinking cause most cancers of the mouth, throat and voice box. Using both together raises the risk much more than either one alone.

HPV is a growing cause. Human papillomavirus, a common virus spread by close contact, causes about 7 in 10 cancers of the tonsils and back of the tongue in the United States. These cancers often respond well to treatment. The HPV vaccine protects against the types that cause them.

Other causes include sun exposure for the lips and skin, past radiation to the head or neck, work with wood dust, asbestos, nickel or formaldehyde, chewing betel quid, and Epstein-Barr virus for cancer behind the nose.

Treatment protects how you live. Teams plan surgery, radiation and medicines to remove the cancer while keeping your speech, swallowing and appearance as close to normal as they can.

Conditions in This Family

  • Oral cavity cancer. Starts in the lips, tongue, gums, inner cheeks, floor or roof of the mouth. It often shows as a sore or a red or white patch that does not heal.
  • Pharyngeal cancer. Starts in the throat. Nasopharyngeal cancer is behind the nose, oropharyngeal cancer is in the tonsils and back of the tongue, and hypopharyngeal cancer is lower, beside the voice box.
  • Laryngeal cancer. Starts in the voice box, including the vocal cords. Hoarseness that lasts is often its first sign.
  • Nasal cavity and sinus cancer. Starts inside the nose or in the air spaces around it, often with a blocked side of the nose or nosebleeds.
  • Salivary gland cancer. Starts in the glands in front of the ear, under the jaw or under the tongue, or in the tiny glands lining the mouth and throat. Many salivary gland lumps are benign.
  • Thyroid cancer. Starts in the thyroid gland in the lower neck. Most types are very treatable. It is part of the endocrine cancer family too.
  • Skin cancer of the head and neck. Basal cell, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma often form on the face, ears, scalp and neck, where the sun reaches most.

A lump in the neck can also come from a cancer that started elsewhere, or from lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

The steps usually follow a symptom or something found at a dental or medical visit.

A head and neck exam. A head and neck surgeon looks in your mouth and throat, feels your neck, and checks your face, ears and skin. Many cancers are found this way.

A look inside with a small camera. A thin, flexible scope passed through the nose lets your doctor see the throat and voice box in the office, usually with numbing spray.

A biopsy. A biopsy is how a cancer is confirmed. A small piece of tissue, or cells taken from a neck lump with a thin needle, is studied by a pathologist. Some biopsies are done in the office, and others need a short procedure. Tumors of the tonsils and back of the tongue are also tested for HPV.

Imaging. A CT scan, MRI or PET/CT scan shows the size of the cancer and whether it has reached the lymph nodes or other parts of the body.

Screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has not found enough evidence to recommend routine screening for adults without symptoms. A dentist often checks your mouth at regular visits, and a quick exam can be done at a head and neck cancer screening.

Treatment depends on the type. Surgery is often the first step, sometimes through the mouth with robotic surgery, and head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds what surgery removes. Radiation therapy, including proton therapy, targets tumors in the small spaces of the head and neck. Chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy are used alone or with radiation. Each member's page explains its options. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on each condition's page.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

See your doctor or dentist if you have any of these for two to three weeks or more:

  • A sore, ulcer, or red or white patch in your mouth that does not heal.
  • A lump or swelling in your neck, cheek or jaw.
  • A sore throat or hoarseness that does not go away.
  • Trouble or pain with swallowing.
  • Ear pain on one side, or a blocked side of the nose.
  • Loose teeth or dentures that no longer fit.
  • Numbness or weakness in part of your face.

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to every cancer in this family; each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Trouble breathing, or noisy, high-pitched breathing.
  • Bleeding from the mouth, nose or throat that will not stop, or coughing up blood.
  • Chest pain.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Being unable to swallow your own saliva.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Mouth or throat pain during radiation that keeps you from eating or drinking.
  • Vomiting that keeps you from keeping fluids down for a day.
  • A feeding tube that is blocked, leaking or has come out.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at a surgical incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will treatment change how I talk or swallow?

It can for a while. Speech and swallowing therapists work with you before and after treatment, and many people regain much of what they had. Your team plans treatment to protect these functions.

Is HPV-related throat cancer different?

Yes. Cancers of the tonsils and tongue base caused by HPV often respond better to treatment than those caused by tobacco, and doctors take that into account when planning care.

Does quitting smoking still help after a diagnosis?

Yes. Quitting helps treatment work better, lowers side effects and reduces the chance of a second cancer. Your care team can connect you with help.

Why do I need to see a dentist before radiation?

Radiation to the mouth can affect your teeth and jaw. A dental check and any needed repairs beforehand protect your mouth during and after treatment.

Is a lump in the neck always cancer?

No. Most neck lumps come from infections and go away in a few weeks. A lump that lasts more than two or three weeks should be checked.

Who Treats It and Where

Head and neck cancers are treated by head and neck surgeons, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, dental oncologists, reconstructive surgeons and speech and swallowing therapists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Head and Neck Cancer Center treats cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid and skin. The team includes fellowship-trained head and neck surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, dental oncologists, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, speech and language pathologists, physical therapists and a certified nurse navigator. Care includes transoral robotic surgery, laser-assisted and endoscopic surgery, sentinel lymph node biopsy, reconstruction, intensity-modulated radiation therapy, proton therapy and infusion at locations across the Orlando region. The center sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida, and the institute's St. Petersburg location treats head and neck cancers in adults and children. The institute holds free head and neck cancer screening events from time to time.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for cancers of the throat, voice box, nose, sinuses and mouth.
Type a city or zip code
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View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Related Pages

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Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Reconstructive surgeons rebuild the jaw, tongue or face after surgery to restore speech, eating and appearance.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Head and neck cancer teams combine surgery, radiation and medicines for cancers of the mouth, throat and voice box.

Learn More About Cancer
ENT / Otolaryngology

Ear, nose and throat doctors examine the throat with a small camera and take biopsies of lasting sores and lumps.

Learn More About ENT / Otolaryngology
Conditions
Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or...

Learn More About Thyroid Cancer
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very...

Learn More About Parathyroid Cancer
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancer Screening
Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds the parts of the mouth, jaw, throat, face or neck removed during cancer...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Head and Neck Cancers.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/head-and-neck/head-neck-fact-sheet
  2. American Cancer Society. Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/oral-cavity-and-oropharyngeal-cancer.html
  3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer.
    https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/oropharyngeal-cancer.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Oral Cancer: Screening. 2013.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/oral-cancer-screening
  5. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Head and Neck Cancers.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system, and each has many types. Hematologist-oncologists, doctors who specialize in blood diseases and cancer, diagnose and treat them.

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Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Blood cancers are cancers of the cells that make up your blood and immune system. You may be reading this because a blood test came back unusual, a lymph node has stayed swollen, or a doctor has said one of these three words and you want to understand what it means. Together they make up about one in ten new cancers each year, and many people live for years after a diagnosis, some of them never needing treatment at all.

Each of the three starts in a different kind of cell. Leukemia starts in the cells in the bone marrow that grow into blood cells. Lymphoma starts in lymphocytes, white blood cells that fight infection, and most often shows up in the lymph nodes. Myeloma starts in plasma cells, which make antibodies.

Within each are many types, and the type matters more than the family name. Some are fast-growing and need treatment right away. Others grow slowly over years and are watched closely before any treatment begins. This page lists the members of the family and how doctors find out which one a person has. Each condition's own page covers its symptoms, causes and treatment.

What Are Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma?

Your bone marrow is the soft, spongy tissue inside your bones. It makes three kinds of blood cells: red blood cells, which carry oxygen; white blood cells, which fight infection; and platelets, which help blood clot. Some white blood cells, the lymphocytes, travel through a network of vessels and small glands called lymph nodes, which are part of your immune system.

A blood cancer starts when one of these cells begins to grow out of control. The abnormal cells crowd out healthy ones or build up in the lymph nodes, bones or other organs. That is why the signs of blood cancer often come from what healthy blood cells can no longer do.

They share some signs. Tiredness that does not go away, infections that keep coming back, bruising or bleeding easily, fevers and night sweats, losing weight without trying, swollen lymph nodes that do not hurt, and pain in the bones or back. Most of these have far more common causes, and many blood cancers are found on a routine blood test before any symptom appears.

There is no screening test. Unlike breast or colon cancer, there is no test to check healthy people for blood cancers, so paying attention to lasting symptoms matters.

Their causes are mostly unknown. Known risks include radiation, exposure to chemicals such as benzene and some pesticides, smoking, earlier chemotherapy, some immune system problems and some infections. Age raises the risk of most types; myeloma is rare before 45. Most blood cancers are not inherited, though a family history of them raises the risk a little.

They are cared for by the same specialists. Hematologist-oncologists lead care, working with radiation oncologists, pathologists, transplant specialists, nurses, pharmacists and dietitians.

Conditions in This Family

Lymphoma

  • Lymphoma, including Hodgkin lymphoma and the many types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It often begins as a painless swollen lymph node in the neck, armpit or groin.

Leukemia

  • Acute leukemias, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), grow quickly and are treated right away. ALL is the most common cancer in children.
  • Chronic leukemias, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), grow more slowly and are most common in adults. Some people with CLL are watched for years before needing treatment.

Myeloma and related plasma cell conditions

  • Multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that often affects the bones and kidneys.
  • Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering myeloma, early changes in plasma cells that are not cancer, or not yet active, and are checked with regular blood tests.

Related bone marrow conditions

  • Myelodysplastic syndromes and myeloproliferative neoplasms, conditions in which the bone marrow makes too few or too many blood cells. Some can turn into leukemia, and they are treated by the same teams.

The same specialists also care for noncancerous blood disorders, such as some anemias and clotting problems.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

Blood cancers are diagnosed by looking closely at the cells themselves.

Blood tests. A complete blood count measures your red cells, white cells and platelets, and a blood smear shows their shape under a microscope. For myeloma, special blood and urine tests look for the abnormal protein that plasma cells make.

A bone marrow test. A doctor uses a needle to take a small sample of marrow and bone, usually from the back of the hip, with numbing medicine. It is the main test for leukemia and myeloma.

A lymph node biopsy. For lymphoma, a surgeon or radiologist removes all or part of a swollen lymph node so a pathologist can name the type.

Tests on the cells. Lab tests read the markers on the cancer cells and look for changes in their genes and chromosomes, which name the exact type and guide treatment. See molecular profiling.

Imaging. A CT scan, a PET-CT scan or an MRI shows where the disease is in the body and helps stage lymphoma and myeloma.

Treatment depends on the type and how fast it is growing. Blood cancers are treated with chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, radiation therapy and bone marrow transplant, and some slow-growing types are watched closely at first. Clinical trials may be an option; the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page shows trials for these cancers.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to anyone with a blood cancer or being checked for one. Each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A sudden, severe headache.
  • New weakness or numbness in the legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • New bruises, or tiny red or purple spots on your skin.
  • Nosebleeds or bleeding gums that are new or happen more often.
  • Mouth sores that make it hard to eat or drink.
  • Pain in your bones or back that is new or getting worse.
  • Redness, swelling or pain where an IV line or port goes in.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

If you have an unusual blood test but no diagnosis yet, keep copies of your results and write down what the doctor said. Ask which test comes next, when you will hear the results and who will call you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is blood cancer the same as leukemia?

Leukemia is one kind of blood cancer. Lymphoma and myeloma are the other two main kinds, and each behaves differently.

Can blood cancers be cured?

Many can, especially some leukemias and lymphomas. Others, such as myeloma, are usually controlled for years with treatment. Your team will explain what to expect for your type.

Why would my doctor watch a cancer instead of treating it?

Some slow-growing types, such as some cases of CLL, do not cause problems for years. Starting treatment only when it is needed spares you side effects without changing the outlook.

Will I need a bone marrow transplant?

Most people do not. A transplant is recommended for some types and stages, and your team will tell you if it may help you.

Do blood cancers run in families?

Most do not. Having a parent, brother or sister with a blood cancer raises the risk slightly, so tell your doctor about your family history.

Who Treats It and Where

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are treated by hematologist-oncologists, with radiation oncologists, pathologists, transplant specialists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, dietitians and counselors.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its hematologist-oncologists care for blood cancers and noncancerous blood disorders and meet regularly to plan each person's treatment. Its Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy program treats adults and children, and a nurse navigator for blood cancers guides you from the start. Children are cared for at its Haley Center for Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion close to home.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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Cancer

Hematologist-oncologists diagnose blood cancers and treat them with chemotherapy, immunotherapy and transplant.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists read bone marrow, blood and lymph node samples to name the exact type of leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma.

Learn More About Pathology
Radiology

Radiologists use CT and PET-CT to stage lymphoma and myeloma and to guide lymph node biopsies.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Leukemia, Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/leukemia
  2. National Cancer Institute. Lymphoma, Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lymphoma
  3. National Cancer Institute. Plasma Cell Neoplasms (Including Multiple Myeloma) Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/myeloma/patient/myeloma-treatment-pdq
  4. American Cancer Society. Leukemia in Children.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/leukemia-in-children.html
  5. MedlinePlus. Blood Disorders.
    https://medlineplus.gov/blooddisorders.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a liver already scarred by hepatitis, alcohol or fatty liver disease. Found early, it can often be removed or destroyed, and many other treatments can control it when it cannot.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Learning you have a growth in your liver brings hard questions fast: is it cancer, did it start there, and what can be done? You may have had a scan for belly pain or yellowing skin, or a growth may have turned up during regular checks for hepatitis or cirrhosis.

Your liver filters your blood, makes bile to digest fat, stores energy and makes proteins that help blood clot. Cancer that starts in the liver is called primary liver cancer. Cancer that starts somewhere else, such as the colon, and spreads to the liver is called secondary or metastatic liver cancer, and it is more common. The two are treated differently, so your care team's first job is to find out which you have.

Treatment for liver cancer has widened in recent years. Beyond surgery and transplant, doctors can destroy tumors with heat or sound, deliver radiation or chemotherapy straight into a tumor's blood supply, and use medicines that work with your immune system.

This page covers the types, signs and causes of liver cancer, how it is found and the treatments available.

What Is Liver Cancer?

The liver is a large organ in the upper right side of your belly, under the ribs. Liver cancers are grouped by where they began:

  • Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver cancer. It starts in the main liver cells and may begin as one tumor or several small ones.
  • Cholangiocarcinoma, or bile duct cancer, starts in the tubes that carry bile inside or outside the liver. It is rare.
  • Secondary (metastatic) liver cancer starts in another organ and travels to the liver through the blood. It is named for where it began, so colon cancer in the liver is treated as colon cancer.

Primary liver cancer is more common in men than in women and is usually found after age 60.

Symptoms of Liver Cancer

Early liver cancer often causes no symptoms. When signs appear, they may include:

  • Pain or a lump in the upper right belly, sometimes reaching the right shoulder.
  • Swelling of the belly from fluid.
  • Yellow skin or eyes (jaundice), with dark urine or pale, chalky stools.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain, loss of appetite or feeling full after a small meal.
  • Nausea or vomiting.
  • Easy bruising or bleeding.
  • Tiredness that does not improve with rest.

These signs are shared with gallstones, ulcers and other liver conditions, so a doctor's exam is the way to sort them out.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Vomiting blood, or black, tarry stools.
  • Sudden confusion or being very hard to wake.
  • Sudden, severe belly pain.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Yellowing of your skin or eyes that is new or getting worse.
  • A belly that is quickly getting larger or tighter.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or chills, in the days after ablation or embolization.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Liver Cancer

Most primary liver cancer grows from long-term damage to the liver. When liver cells are injured again and again, scar tissue replaces healthy tissue, a condition called cirrhosis. The repeated repair gives cells more chances to develop changes in their DNA that let them grow out of control. Chronic infection with hepatitis B or C is the most common cause worldwide. In the United States, heavy drinking and fatty liver disease are growing causes.

Risk Factors for Liver Cancer

You are more likely to develop primary liver cancer if you:

  • Have chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C.
  • Have cirrhosis from any cause.
  • Drink heavily over many years.
  • Have fatty liver disease linked to obesity or type 2 diabetes, now called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.
  • Have an inherited condition such as hemochromatosis, which stores too much iron in the liver.
  • Smoke.
  • Eat foods tainted with aflatoxins, poisons from molds on poorly stored grains and nuts, which is more common outside the United States.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get liver cancer.

Prevention of Liver Cancer

Protecting your liver lowers your risk:

  • Get the hepatitis B vaccine.
  • Get tested for hepatitis C at least once as an adult; treatment cures most infections.
  • Limit alcohol, or stop if you have liver disease.
  • Keep a healthy weight and manage diabetes.
  • Do not smoke.

If you have cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B, your doctor may recommend an ultrasound, often with a blood test, every six months. Regular checks can find liver cancer early, when more treatments are possible.

Diagnosis of Liver Cancer

Diagnosis starts with an exam to feel for swelling or a lump. Tests may include:

  • Blood tests of liver function, hepatitis, and a tumor marker test called AFP.
  • Imaging. Ultrasound, a CT scan or an MRI shows the tumor in detail. A liver cancer often has a pattern on CT or MRI clear enough to diagnose it without a biopsy.
  • Biopsy. A thin needle removes a small piece of tissue when the scans are not conclusive or to learn the tumor type.

Your team also measures how well your liver works, because that guides which treatments are safe.

Treatment Options for Liver Cancer

The plan depends on the type, the size and number of tumors, whether they have spread, and the health of the rest of your liver.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Hepatectomy removes the part of the liver that holds the tumor. It suits people with early cancer and an otherwise healthy liver. When tumors are in both sides of the liver, surgery may be done in stages.
  • Liver transplant replaces the whole liver and may suit early cancer in a liver too damaged for surgery.
  • Tumor ablation destroys small tumors with heat from a probe placed through the skin.
  • Histotripsy destroys tumors with focused sound waves, without incisions, needles or radiation.

Treatments Through the Blood Supply

A thin tube is passed through an artery to the tumor. Tumor embolization blocks its blood supply, and chemoembolization adds chemotherapy. Radioembolization, also called Y90, places tiny beads that give off radiation right inside the tumor.

Medicines and Radiation

Immunotherapy and targeted therapy are the main medicines for advanced liver cancer. Chemotherapy is used more often for bile duct cancer and for cancer that spread to the liver. Radiation therapy, including stereotactic body radiation therapy, can treat tumors that are hard to reach.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page to see those open for liver cancer. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Liver Cancer

Caring for your whole liver is part of treatment. Avoid alcohol, check with your team before any new medicine or supplement, and keep treating hepatitis if you have it. A dietitian can help if your appetite is poor. After treatment, you will have scans and blood tests every few months, because liver cancer can return in another part of the liver. Counseling and integrative medicine help you and your family cope.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if your belly swells, your skin changes color, or you feel more tired or confused than usual. Bring a list of your medicines and supplements, your hepatitis history, and your questions: whether the cancer started in the liver, which treatments fit your liver's health, and what follow-up looks like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is cancer in my liver the same as liver cancer?

Not always. Cancer that spread from another organ is treated as cancer of that organ, so a scan, sometimes with a biopsy, decides which you have.

Can liver cancer be cured?

Often it can when found early, with surgery, transplant or ablation. When cure is not possible, treatment can control the cancer for a long time.

Will I need a liver transplant?

Most people do not. A transplant is for a small group with early cancer and a liver too damaged for other treatment.

What is histotripsy?

It uses focused pulses of sound to break up tumor tissue from outside the body. It needs no incision, and many people go home the same day.

Do I still need to treat my hepatitis?

Yes. Controlling hepatitis protects the rest of your liver and makes more treatments possible.

Who Treats It and Where

Liver cancer is treated by liver surgeons, interventional radiologists, gastroenterologists, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists, working together.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its Liver Cancer Center team of liver surgeons, gastroenterologists, radiologists, medical and radiation oncologists, palliative medicine and nutrition specialists treats primary liver cancer and cancer that has spread to the liver, with surgery, ablation, embolization, Y90 and histotripsy.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Radiation therapy, infusion, nurse navigators for gastrointestinal cancers, and support from diagnosis through survivorship.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Cancer

Liver surgeons and oncologists remove, destroy or control liver tumors, whether they started there or spread there.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Liver specialists treat hepatitis and cirrhosis and watch livers at risk with scans every six months.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Interventional radiologists treat liver tumors through a thin tube in an artery or a probe through the skin.

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Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

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Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

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Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

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Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

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Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Liver and Bile Duct Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/adult-liver-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Liver Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/liver-cancer.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Liver Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  4. MedlinePlus. Liver Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/livercancer.html
  5. Singal AG, et al. AASLD Practice Guidance on prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatology. 2023.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37199193/

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or treated with the goal of cure, and yearly screening helps find it early in people at higher risk. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists and lung specialists plan care together.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be reading this because a scan found something in your lung, because a doctor has said the words lung cancer, or because you smoked for years and want to know your risk. Each brings questions about what it means and what happens next.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, partly because it often causes no symptoms until it has grown. That is changing. Yearly screening with a low-dose CT scan finds more lung cancers at an early stage, when surgery or focused radiation can often remove or destroy the tumor. For cancer that has spread, newer medicines that work with the immune system or target the tumor's own genes help many people live longer and feel better.

This page covers the types of lung cancer, its symptoms and causes, how it is found and staged, and the treatments a care team may recommend.

What Is Lung Cancer?

Lung cancer begins in the cells that line the airways or the air sacs of the lungs. It is one of the thoracic cancers, the cancers of the chest. Doctors group it into two main types, because each grows differently and is treated differently:

  • Non-small cell lung cancer. About 80 to 85 out of 100 lung cancers. Its main kinds are adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and large cell carcinoma. It usually grows more slowly.
  • Small cell lung cancer. About 10 to 15 out of 100. It tends to grow quickly and spread early, and it is closely tied to smoking.

Most people with lung cancer are diagnosed at 65 or older. People who have never smoked get lung cancer too, and in them it is most often adenocarcinoma, often driven by a gene change inside the tumor.

Symptoms of Lung Cancer

Early lung cancer often causes no symptoms. Many are found on a screening scan, or on a chest X-ray or CT done for another reason. When symptoms come, they can include:

  • A cough that does not go away or gets worse.
  • Coughing up blood or rust-colored mucus.
  • Chest pain that is worse with deep breathing, coughing or laughing.
  • Hoarseness.
  • Shortness of breath or wheezing.
  • Feeling very tired, losing appetite, or losing weight without trying.
  • Chest infections such as bronchitis or pneumonia that keep coming back.

Cancer that has spread can cause bone pain, headaches, dizziness or balance changes, or a yellow tint to the skin.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Coughing up blood.
  • Sudden swelling of the face, neck or arms.
  • New weakness or numbness in the legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A cough that is new or getting worse.
  • Hoarseness that lasts longer than two weeks.
  • A new headache or new bone pain that does not go away.
  • Losing weight you cannot explain, or not being able to keep food down.
  • A new rash or diarrhea after starting immunotherapy.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts with changes in the genes of lung cells. Most of those changes come from breathing in substances that damage the cells over many years:

  • Tobacco smoke is linked to about 80 out of 100 lung cancer deaths, from cigarettes, cigars and pipes alike.
  • Radon, a natural gas from soil that has no color or smell, is the second leading cause and the leading cause in people who have never smoked. In Florida, about 1 in 5 homes tested has a high radon level.
  • Secondhand smoke, asbestos, diesel exhaust, air pollution and workplace chemicals such as arsenic and silica.

Some lung cancers have no clear cause.

Risk Factors for Lung Cancer

You are more likely to develop lung cancer if you:

  • Smoke now or smoked in the past. Risk rises with how much and how long.
  • Breathe secondhand smoke at home or at work.
  • Live or work where radon levels are high.
  • Have worked with asbestos or other cancer-causing chemicals.
  • Had radiation therapy to the chest.
  • Have a parent, brother or sister who had lung cancer.
  • Have a lung disease such as pulmonary fibrosis or COPD.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get lung cancer.

Prevention of Lung Cancer

  • Do not start smoking, and if you smoke, quit. Your risk begins to fall after you stop, and it keeps falling year after year.
  • Test your home for radon with a kit from a hardware store, and fix a high level.
  • Avoid secondhand smoke and follow safety rules around workplace chemicals.
  • Skip vaping, which also exposes your lungs to harmful chemicals.

Screening. Yearly lung cancer screening with a low-dose CT scan is recommended for adults 50 to 80 who have smoked at least 20 pack-years, a measure of how much you smoked. Talk with your doctor about whether it fits you.

Diagnosis of Lung Cancer

A finding on a scan leads to a few more steps:

  • Imaging. A CT scan shows the size and shape of a spot. A PET-CT scan and an MRI of the brain show whether cancer has spread.
  • Biopsy. A biopsy confirms whether a spot is cancer. A thin scope passed through the mouth, as in navigational bronchoscopy, reaches spots deep in the lung; a needle guided by CT reaches spots near the edge; and a scope with ultrasound samples the lymph nodes in the chest.
  • Tumor testing. Molecular profiling looks for gene changes and proteins in the tumor that point to targeted therapy or immunotherapy.

The results set the stage, from stage I, a tumor only in the lung, to stage IV, cancer that has spread to other organs. Small cell lung cancer is often described as limited or extensive.

Treatment Options for Lung Cancer

Treatment depends on the type, the stage, the tumor's genes and your overall health. Many people have more than one treatment.

Procedures and Surgery

For early non-small cell lung cancer, cancer surgery offers the best chance of cure. The surgeon removes a wedge, a segment, a lobe or, less often, a whole lung, and checks nearby lymph nodes. Most lung operations are done through small incisions, often with robotic surgery.

Radiation

Stereotactic body radiation therapy gives high doses to a small tumor in a few sessions, an option when surgery is not. Radiation therapy and proton therapy treat larger tumors, often alongside chemotherapy.

Medicines

Clinical trials may be an option; the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page shows trials for lung cancer. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Lung Cancer

Many people keep working and doing what they enjoy during and after treatment. Staying active, even with short walks, helps energy and breathing, and cancer rehabilitation can build strength after surgery. If you smoke, quitting at any point helps treatment work and lowers the chance the cancer comes back. After treatment, you will have regular CT scans to watch your lungs.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call your team if a symptom is new, if a side effect keeps you from eating, sleeping or moving, or if you are not sure a medicine is working. Bring a list of your medicines, your smoking history and your questions: what type and stage you have, what the tumor testing showed, the goal of each treatment, and who to call after hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can lung cancer be cured?

Yes, often when it is found early. Surgery or focused radiation can remove or destroy a tumor that has not spread. Later-stage cancer can often be controlled for a long time.

I never smoked. How did I get lung cancer?

About 10 to 20 out of 100 lung cancers occur in people who never smoked. Radon, secondhand smoke, air pollution and gene changes in the tumor all play a part. Nothing you did caused it.

What does my stage mean?

The stage describes the tumor's size and whether it has reached lymph nodes or other organs. It guides which treatments make sense and helps your team plan.

Will I still be able to breathe normally after surgery?

Most people do. Your lungs have more capacity than you use day to day, and breathing tests before surgery confirm enough lung will remain.

Should my family be screened?

A parent, brother or sister with lung cancer raises your risk slightly. Family members who meet the smoking guidelines should be screened; others can ask their doctor.

Who Treats It and Where

Lung cancer is treated by thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and pulmonologists who plan care together.

Orlando Health Melbourne Hospital and Orlando Health Sebastian River Hospital offer low-dose CT screening and navigation bronchoscopy to sample small nodules.

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Related Pages

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Oncologists, thoracic surgeons and radiation oncologists stage lung cancer and plan surgery, radiation and medicines.

Learn More About Cancer
Pulmonary / Critical Care

Pulmonologists sample lung spots by bronchoscopy and check breathing before and after lung cancer treatment.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Radiology

Radiologists read the CT, PET-CT and brain MRI scans that find lung cancer and show whether it has spread.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

Learn More About Thoracic Cancers
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

Learn More About Barrett's Esophagus
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer
Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

Learn More About Lung Nodules
Treatments
Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history....

Learn More About Lung Cancer Screening
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Navigational Bronchoscopy

Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built...

Learn More About Navigational Bronchoscopy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Lung Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/lung-cancer.html
  2. National Cancer Institute. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung/patient/non-small-cell-lung-treatment-pdq
  3. National Cancer Institute. Small Cell Lung Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung/patient/small-cell-lung-treatment-pdq
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Lung Cancer: Screening. 2021.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/lung-cancer-screening
  5. MedlinePlus. Lung Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lungcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old infection or inflammation and are not cancer. Lung specialists decide whether a nodule needs no follow-up, another scan or a biopsy.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Being told a scan found a spot on your lung is unsettling, especially when you were having the scan for something else. Many people hear the word nodule and think straight away of cancer. Most of the time it is something far less serious, and the next step is often simply another scan.

Lung nodules are very common. They turn up on about 1 in 4 lung cancer screening scans and on many CT scans done for other reasons, such as a chest injury or pneumonia. The great majority are benign, meaning they are not cancer. Doctors look at a nodule's size, shape and whether it changes over time, and weigh your own risk, to decide what to do next. When a nodule does turn out to be an early lung cancer, finding it at this small size gives the best chance of cure.

This page explains what lung nodules are, why they form, how they are checked and when treatment is needed.

What Are Lung Nodules?

A lung nodule is a round or oval growth of tissue in the lung, 3 centimeters (about 1.2 inches) across or smaller. A larger spot is called a mass. You can have one nodule or several.

Doctors describe nodules by what they look like on a CT scan:

  • Solid nodules look dense all the way through.
  • Ground-glass nodules look hazy, like frosted glass.
  • Part-solid nodules have both.

Smooth, small nodules that stay the same size for two years or more are almost always benign. Nodules that are larger, have uneven or spiky edges, or grow over time get a closer look, because those features are more common in early lung cancer.

Symptoms of Lung Nodules

Most lung nodules cause no symptoms at all. That is why they are almost always found by chance, on a scan done for another reason or on a screening scan. Any symptoms usually come from the cause of the nodule, such as a cough from an infection.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing, including in the hours or days after a lung biopsy.
  • Coughing up blood.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A cough that is new or will not go away.
  • Streaks of blood in your mucus after a biopsy that last more than a day.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after a biopsy, or redness or swelling where a biopsy needle went in.
  • Losing weight you cannot explain.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Lung Nodules

Most nodules are a small area of scar or inflammation left behind after the lung heals. Common causes include:

  • Past infections, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis or fungal infections that come from soil and bird or bat droppings.
  • Inflammation from conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis or sarcoidosis.
  • Benign growths, such as a hamartoma, a harmless clump of normal tissue.
  • Cancer, either an early lung cancer or a cancer that has spread from elsewhere in the body. This is the less common cause.

Risk Factors for Lung Nodules

Anyone can have a nodule. The chance that a nodule is cancer is higher if you:

  • Smoke now or smoked in the past.
  • Are older, especially over 50.
  • Have had cancer before.
  • Have a parent, brother or sister who had lung cancer.
  • Have been exposed to radon, asbestos or other cancer-causing chemicals.

Having a risk factor does not mean a nodule is cancer. Your doctor uses these factors together with how the nodule looks.

Diagnosis of Lung Nodules

Your doctor compares the nodule with any earlier scans, since one that has not changed in years is reassuring. Then the plan follows the nodule's size, look and your risk:

  • No follow-up. A very small nodule in someone at low risk often needs nothing more.
  • Watching with scans. A follow-up CT scan in a few months to a year checks whether the nodule changes. Some people have several scans over two or more years.
  • A PET-CT scan. For a larger nodule, a PET-CT scan shows whether it is unusually active.
  • A biopsy. When a nodule looks concerning, a biopsy takes a small sample. A thin scope through the mouth, as in navigational bronchoscopy, reaches nodules deep in the lung; a needle guided by CT reaches nodules near the edge; and some nodules are removed and tested in one operation.

Treatment Options for Lung Nodules

A benign nodule usually needs no treatment. When a cause such as an infection is found, that cause is treated.

Procedures and Surgery

When a nodule is cancer or very likely to be, a surgeon can remove it with a small wedge of surrounding lung, or remove a larger segment or lobe. Most of these operations are done through small incisions, often with robotic surgery. Learn more about cancer surgery.

Radiation

For people who cannot have surgery, stereotactic body radiation therapy delivers focused radiation to the nodule in a few sessions.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Lung Nodules

Waiting between scans can be stressful. It helps to know the date of your next scan and who will call you with the results. Keep your follow-up appointments, since a nodule that stays the same over time is the clearest sign it is benign. If you smoke, quitting lowers your risk of lung cancer from the day you stop. If you meet the guidelines, yearly lung cancer screening keeps watch on your lungs going forward.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if you develop new symptoms, if you miss a follow-up scan, or if you have a scan somewhere else that your team has not seen. Bring copies of earlier chest scans and your questions: how large the nodule is, how likely it is to be benign, when the next scan is, and what would change the plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a lung nodule mean I have cancer?

Usually not. Most nodules are benign scars or areas of old inflammation. Your doctor will tell you how likely cancer is based on the nodule and your risk.

Why not take it out right away?

Most nodules never need removal, and surgery and biopsy have risks of their own. Watching with scans is a safe way to tell a harmless nodule from one that needs treatment.

How long will I need follow-up scans?

It depends on the nodule. Solid nodules are usually watched for about two years; hazy, ground-glass nodules can be watched for five years, since they change slowly.

Is the radiation from repeat scans safe?

Follow-up scans use a low dose of radiation. Your care team spaces them so the benefit of watching the nodule outweighs the small risk.

Will my nodule go away?

Some nodules from a recent infection shrink or disappear. Most scars stay the same for life and cause no trouble.

Who Treats It and Where

Lung nodules are checked and treated by pulmonologists, thoracic surgeons and radiologists, with your primary care doctor following the plan with you.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center diagnoses, monitors and treats lung nodules in one place, with an evaluation by a pulmonologist or surgeon, robotic bronchoscopy, CT-guided needle biopsy, robotic surgery and a nurse navigator who coordinates follow-up visits. A screening program reviews imaging done across Orlando Health to find nodules that need a closer look.

Orlando Health Melbourne Hospital and Orlando Health Sebastian River Hospital use an electromagnetic navigation system to guide bronchoscopy to small nodules for biopsy.

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Thoracic surgeons remove a nodule that may be an early lung cancer, often through small robotic incisions.

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Lung specialists decide whether a nodule needs no follow-up, another scan or a biopsy, and perform the biopsy.

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Radiologists compare follow-up CT scans to see whether a nodule has grown or stayed the same.

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Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

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Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

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Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

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Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built...

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Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions...

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Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history....

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References

  1. American Lung Association. Lung Nodules.
    https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung-disease-lookup/lung-nodules
  2. MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. Solitary pulmonary nodule.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000086.htm
  3. American Cancer Society. Lung Cancer Screening Guidelines.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/lung-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html
  4. MacMahon H, et al. Guidelines for Management of Incidental Pulmonary Nodules Detected on CT Images: From the Fleischner Society 2017. Radiology. 2017.
    https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2017161659

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen lymph node. There are two main kinds, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin, and many types within them. Many lymphomas respond well to treatment, and some can be cured.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe a lump in your neck, armpit or groin has not gone away, or a scan for something else showed enlarged lymph nodes. Maybe you have already heard the word lymphoma from a doctor and want to know what it means. Most swollen lymph nodes come from infections and go down on their own, so a lasting one deserves a check rather than alarm.

Lymphoma is one of the three main kinds of blood cancer, along with leukemia and myeloma. It starts in lymphocytes, the infection-fighting cells that travel through your lymph nodes, spleen, bone marrow and other tissue. Because lymph tissue is found throughout the body, lymphoma can start in many places.

There are more than 70 types of lymphoma, and the exact type shapes everything that follows. Some grow slowly over years and are watched before any treatment begins. Others grow quickly and are treated right away, often with very good results. This page explains the kinds of lymphoma, its signs, how it is found and how it is treated.

What Is Lymphoma?

Your lymph system is a network of thin vessels and small, bean-shaped glands called lymph nodes. It carries lymphocytes around the body to fight infection. Lymphoma starts when lymphocytes change and grow out of control, building up in lymph nodes or in organs such as the spleen, stomach, skin or bone marrow.

Hodgkin lymphoma is the less common of the two main kinds. Under a microscope, it shows large abnormal cells called Reed-Sternberg cells. It usually starts in the nodes of the chest, neck or armpits and spreads in order from one group of nodes to the next. It is most often found in young adults and in people over 65, and it is one of the most curable cancers.

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma is far more common and includes many types. Most start in B cells; some start in T cells. Doctors also sort the types by how they grow:

  • Slow-growing (indolent) lymphomas, such as follicular lymphoma, may cause few problems for years.
  • Fast-growing (aggressive) lymphomas, such as diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the most common type, need treatment soon and often respond well to it.

Lymphoma can also start in the brain or spinal cord, called central nervous system lymphoma. It is found like other brain tumors and treated by hematologist-oncologists, usually with chemotherapy that reaches the brain.

Symptoms of Lymphoma

  • A painless swelling in the neck, armpit or groin that lasts more than a few weeks.
  • Fevers that come and go with no infection to explain them.
  • Night sweats that soak your clothes or sheets.
  • Losing weight without trying.
  • Tiredness that rest does not fix.
  • A cough, chest pressure or shortness of breath, when lymphoma grows in the chest.
  • Fullness or pain in the belly, when the spleen or nodes in the abdomen are enlarged.

Many people with lymphoma feel well at first.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Swelling of the face, neck or arms that comes with trouble breathing.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • New weakness or numbness in the legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A lymph node that is growing quickly or has become painful.
  • Night sweats or itching that keep you from sleeping.
  • Belly pain or fullness that makes it hard to eat.
  • Mouth sores, diarrhea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking.
  • Redness or pain where an IV line or port goes in.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Lymphoma

Lymphoma begins with changes in the genes of a single lymphocyte. Most of these changes happen during a person's life rather than being passed down, and in most people no cause is ever found.

Some infections can lead to lymphoma by keeping the immune system switched on for a long time. The Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis, is linked to some Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas. A stomach infection called H. pylori can lead to a lymphoma of the stomach lining, and treating the infection can treat that lymphoma.

Risk Factors for Lymphoma

  • Age. The risk of most non-Hodgkin lymphomas rises with age.
  • A weakened immune system, from HIV, from medicines taken after an organ transplant, or from an inherited immune condition.
  • Autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and Sjögren's disease.
  • Some infections, including Epstein-Barr virus, hepatitis C and H. pylori.
  • Exposure to some chemicals, such as benzene and certain pesticides and weed killers. Research on specific products is ongoing.
  • Family history. Having a parent, brother or sister with lymphoma raises the risk slightly.

Most people with these risk factors never develop lymphoma. The hepatitis B vaccine and treating HIV lower known risks. There is no screening test for lymphoma.

Diagnosis of Lymphoma

The visit. Your doctor asks about your symptoms and checks for swollen lymph nodes or an enlarged spleen.

A lymph node biopsy. This is the test that confirms lymphoma. A surgeon removes a whole lymph node, or a radiologist takes a core of tissue with a needle guided by a scan. A pathologist then names the exact type. See biopsy.

Tests on the cells. Lab tests read the markers on the lymphoma cells and look for gene changes, which pin down the type and guide treatment. See molecular profiling.

Blood tests. These check your blood counts, organ function and signs of infection.

Imaging. A PET-CT scan or CT scan shows which lymph nodes and organs are involved. This sets the stage, from 1 (one area) to 4 (spread more widely).

A bone marrow test, for some types, to see whether lymphoma has reached the marrow.

Treatment Options for Lymphoma

Treatment depends on the type, the stage, how fast it is growing and your overall health.

Watching Closely

For some slow-growing lymphomas that cause no symptoms, the best first step is active monitoring with regular visits and scans. Treatment starts when the lymphoma begins to cause problems.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy, often a combination of drugs given in cycles.
  • Immunotherapy, including antibodies such as rituximab that mark lymphoma cells for the immune system, often given with chemotherapy, and CAR T-cell therapy, which reprograms your own immune cells to attack the lymphoma.
  • Targeted therapy, drugs that block signals lymphoma cells need to grow.
  • Antibiotics, for a stomach lymphoma caused by H. pylori.

Radiation and Transplant

Your plan is your own, made with your care team. Clinical trials may be an option; the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page shows trials for lymphoma.

Living With Lymphoma

Treatment and recovery can make you more open to infection. Wash your hands often, stay away from people who are sick, and ask your team which vaccines you need. Light activity, such as a daily walk, helps with tiredness, and a dietitian can help if you are losing weight.

If you are on active monitoring, keep every appointment and track how you feel between them. Counselors and support groups help with the waiting. After treatment, follow-up visits continue for years to check for the lymphoma returning and for late effects on the heart, lungs or thyroid.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call your team if a swollen node returns or grows, if night sweats, fevers or weight loss start again, or if a side effect is not easing. Bring your medicines list and your questions: your exact type and stage, the goal of treatment and how you will know it is working.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is lymphoma curable?

Many lymphomas are. Hodgkin lymphoma and many fast-growing non-Hodgkin lymphomas are often cured. Slow-growing types are usually controlled for many years, with treatment when it is needed.

What is the difference between Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma?

They start in different kinds of lymphocytes and look different under a microscope. Hodgkin lymphoma has Reed-Sternberg cells and spreads in a more predictable pattern. They are treated differently.

Is lymphoma the same as leukemia?

No. Both are blood cancers. Leukemia starts in the bone marrow and is found mostly in the blood, while lymphoma usually starts in the lymph nodes.

Will I lose my hair?

It depends on the drugs. Some chemotherapy for lymphoma causes hair loss, and hair grows back after treatment ends. Many immunotherapy and targeted drugs do not cause it.

Can I keep working during treatment?

Many people work through some or all of treatment. Talk with your team about timing and the side effects to plan for.

Who Treats It and Where

Lymphoma is treated by hematologist-oncologists, doctors who specialize in blood cancers, with radiation oncologists, pathologists, transplant specialists, nurses and pharmacists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its hematologist-oncologists care for blood cancers, and a nurse navigator for blood cancers guides you from the start. Its Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy program treats Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma with transplant and CAR T-cell therapy. Children are cared for at its Haley Center for Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion close to home.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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[Address Line]
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Hematologist-oncologists name the lymphoma type and stage, then treat it with chemotherapy, immunotherapy or CAR T-cells.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists study a lymph node biopsy under the microscope to tell Hodgkin from non-Hodgkin and name the exact type.

Learn More About Pathology
Radiology

Radiologists read PET-CT scans that stage lymphoma and show whether treatment is working, and guide needle biopsies.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system,...

Learn More About Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

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Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Adult Hodgkin Lymphoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lymphoma/patient/adult-hodgkin-treatment-pdq
  2. National Cancer Institute. Adult Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lymphoma/patient/adult-nhl-treatment-pdq
  3. American Cancer Society. Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Risk Factors.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/non-hodgkin-lymphoma/causes-risks-prevention/risk-factors.html
  4. American Cancer Society. Hodgkin Lymphoma.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/hodgkin-lymphoma.html
  5. MedlinePlus. Lymphoma.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lymphoma.html
  6. NCCN Guidelines for Patients. Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphomas.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and more likely to spread, so early detection matters. Found early, it is usually cured with surgery, and newer medicines help many people with advanced melanoma.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Hearing the word melanoma can be frightening, and it is natural to wonder right away whether it has spread. For most people the news is better than they fear: most melanomas are found while they are still thin and confined to the skin, and removing them is usually the only treatment needed.

Melanoma starts in melanocytes, the cells that make melanin, the pigment that colors your skin and helps protect it from the sun. When those cells are damaged, often by ultraviolet light, they can grow out of control. Melanoma can begin in an existing mole, though most start in skin that looked normal. Because it can travel to lymph nodes and other organs, your care team will look at how deep it goes and whether any cells have spread, and that guides every next step.

This page covers the signs of melanoma, its causes, how it is found and staged, the treatments available and life after treatment.

What Is Melanoma?

Melanoma is a type of skin cancer. It makes up a small share of skin cancers and causes most skin cancer deaths, which is why doctors take every suspicious mole seriously. It can affect adults of any age, including people in their 20s and 30s.

There are several kinds:

  • Superficial spreading melanoma, the most common, grows along the surface before growing deeper.
  • Nodular melanoma grows down into the skin more quickly and often looks like a firm, raised bump.
  • Lentigo maligna melanoma forms in skin with heavy sun damage, often on the face of older adults.
  • Acral lentiginous melanoma forms on the palms, soles or under a nail, and is the most common type in people with darker skin.
  • Mucosal melanoma forms inside the mouth, nose, or genital or anal area, and uveal melanoma forms in the eye.

Symptoms of Melanoma

The ABCDEs help you spot a mole or spot that needs a look:

  • Asymmetry: one half does not match the other.
  • Border: the edge is ragged, notched or blurred.
  • Color: more than one shade, such as brown, black, red, white or blue.
  • Diameter: larger than a pencil eraser, though melanomas can be smaller.
  • Evolving: changing in size, shape, color or height.

Also watch for an "ugly duckling" spot that looks different from your other moles, a firm bump that grows over weeks, a dark streak under a nail, or a spot that itches, crusts or bleeds.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • A seizure, sudden confusion, or a sudden, severe headache.
  • New weakness or numbness in an arm or leg, or sudden trouble speaking or seeing.
  • Chest pain, trouble breathing, or coughing up blood.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A new lump in your neck, armpit or groin, or near the scar where a melanoma was removed.
  • Diarrhea, a new rash, a cough, or yellowing skin or eyes while taking immunotherapy.
  • Redness, warmth, swelling or pus at a surgical site.
  • Swelling in the arm or leg on the side where lymph nodes were removed.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Melanoma

Most melanomas are linked to ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun or tanning beds. UV light damages the DNA in melanocytes, and when the cell cannot repair it, the cell can start to multiply out of control. Intense, blistering sunburns, especially in childhood and the teen years, are strongly tied to melanoma. Some melanomas form on skin that rarely sees the sun, such as the soles or under the nails, where inherited changes and other factors play a larger role.

Risk Factors for Melanoma

Your risk is higher if you:

  • Have fair skin, freckles, or light or red hair.
  • Have had blistering sunburns or used tanning beds.
  • Have many moles, or unusual moles called dysplastic nevi.
  • Have had melanoma before.
  • Have a parent, brother, sister or child who had melanoma.
  • Have a weakened immune system.
  • Are older, though melanoma is among the most common cancers in young adults.

When melanoma appears in several family members, shared sun habits are often the cause, and an inherited change is sometimes the cause. Genetic counseling can help sort out which.

Prevention of Melanoma

Protecting your skin from UV light lowers your risk:

  • Avoid sunburn, and seek shade from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Use broad-spectrum, water-resistant sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher, and reapply every two hours outdoors.
  • Wear a wide-brimmed hat, UV-blocking sunglasses and protective clothing.
  • Never use tanning beds.
  • Protect children's skin, since early sunburns raise lifelong risk.
  • Check your whole body each month, including your scalp, soles and between your toes.

Diagnosis of Melanoma

A doctor examines the spot, often with a dermatoscope, and removes it for a skin biopsy, usually taking the whole spot when possible. A pathologist measures how deep it reaches, called its thickness, and notes other features such as whether the surface is broken.

Those findings set the stage, from 0 (only in the top layer of skin) to IV (spread to distant organs). For melanomas thicker than about 0.8 millimeters, or thinner ones with a broken surface, a sentinel lymph node biopsy checks the first lymph nodes the cancer would reach (lymph node removal). For later stages, a CT scan, PET/CT scan or brain MRI may follow, and molecular profiling looks for changes, such as in the BRAF gene, that some medicines target.

Treatment Options for Melanoma

Procedures and Surgery

Melanoma surgery is the main treatment for melanoma that has not spread. The surgeon removes the melanoma with a margin of healthy skin, wider for thicker melanomas, and often cures early melanoma by itself. Some early melanomas on the face may be treated with Mohs surgery. When cancer is found in lymph nodes, more nodes may be removed. Skin cancer reconstruction repairs larger wounds.

Medicines

  • Immunotherapy helps your immune system find and attack melanoma cells. It is used after surgery for higher-risk melanoma and for melanoma that has spread.
  • Targeted therapy pills block the BRAF and MEK proteins in melanomas with a BRAF change.
  • Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy grows immune cells from your own tumor in a lab and returns them by infusion, for some advanced melanomas.
  • An injected virus therapy can be placed into melanomas in the skin or lymph nodes.
  • Chemotherapy is used less often now.

Radiation

Radiation therapy may follow surgery in some cases, treat melanoma that has spread to the brain or bones, or ease symptoms.

Clinical trials may be an option for some people, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists them. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Melanoma

After treatment, follow-up visits check your skin and lymph nodes, often every few months at first and then less often. Most returns happen in the first five years, though a late return is possible. Your risk of a second melanoma is higher, so keep checking your skin monthly and protect it every day. Your parents, brothers, sisters and children benefit from their own skin checks.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about any new or changing spot, a lump near your scar or in a lymph node area, or side effects from treatment. Bring your biopsy report and a list of your medicines. Ask what stage your melanoma is, whether you need a lymph node biopsy or scans, which treatments fit and why, and what follow-up schedule to expect.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can melanoma be cured?

Yes, most melanomas found early are cured with surgery. For melanoma that has spread, newer medicines control the disease for many people for years.

How fast does melanoma spread?

It varies. Some grow slowly over months or years; nodular melanoma can grow faster. Getting a changing spot checked promptly is the best protection.

Do I need chemotherapy?

Most people with early melanoma need surgery only. Immunotherapy and targeted therapy are the main medicines for higher-risk or advanced melanoma.

Will my children get melanoma?

Most melanoma is not inherited, though a family history raises risk. Your children benefit from sun protection and regular skin checks.

Can melanoma come back years later?

It can, most often within five years. Regular follow-up visits and monthly self-checks help find it early.

Who Treats It and Where

Melanoma is treated by dermatologists, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and plastic surgeons, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team includes dermatology, surgical oncology, medical oncologists who focus on melanoma, plastic surgery and radiation oncology, and its tumor board reviews treatment plans together. It treats melanoma from early to advanced stages, including mucosal and uveal melanoma, offers immunotherapy, targeted therapy and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, and has a neuro team of neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons and radiation oncologists for melanoma that reaches the brain.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists and a Mohs surgeon in Carrollwood, Land O' Lakes, North Tampa, St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills check skin, biopsy suspicious spots and perform melanoma surgery, including wide excision and lymph node surgery, with plastic surgeons for larger repairs.
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Cancer

Cancer specialists treat melanoma that is deep or has spread, with surgery, immunotherapy or targeted medicines.

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Dermatology

Dermatologists check moles and biopsy any that change, which is how most melanomas are found early.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Melanoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/melanoma-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Melanoma Skin Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/melanoma-skin-cancer.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Melanoma.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  4. MedlinePlus. Melanoma.
    https://medlineplus.gov/melanoma.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost anywhere, most often in the intestines, pancreas, appendix, rectum and lungs. Many grow slowly, some make hormones that cause symptoms, and most can be treated or controlled for a long time.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

A neuroendocrine tumor is often found by surprise: during an appendix operation, on a colonoscopy, or on a scan done for something else. Others are found after months of flushing, diarrhea or belly pain that seemed to have no explanation. Either way, the name is unfamiliar to most people, and the first questions are what it is and how serious.

Neuroendocrine cells are spread throughout the body. They receive signals from nerves and answer by releasing hormones that control things such as digestion, blood sugar and breathing. When these cells grow out of control, they form a neuroendocrine tumor, often shortened to NET. You may also hear the older name carcinoid tumor.

These tumors vary more than most cancers. Many grow so slowly that people live with them for years, while a smaller group grows quickly. Where the tumor started, how fast its cells are dividing and whether it makes hormones all shape the plan your team makes with you.

This page covers the types, signs and causes of neuroendocrine tumors, how they are found and the treatments available.

What Are Neuroendocrine Tumors?

Neuroendocrine tumors are uncommon, and they are found more often now that scans and colonoscopies are routine. They are named for where they start:

  • Gastrointestinal NETs form in the small intestine, appendix, rectum, colon or stomach. Learn more about appendiceal cancers.
  • Pancreatic NETs form in the hormone-making cells of the pancreas. They are different from the more common pancreatic cancer.
  • Lung NETs form in the airways. Learn more about thoracic cancers.

Doctors also sort them by how they behave:

  • Functional tumors make extra hormones that cause symptoms. Examples include insulinomas, which drop blood sugar, and gastrinomas, which raise stomach acid.
  • Nonfunctional tumors make no extra hormones, so they are often found later, when they press on nearby organs.
  • Grade describes how fast the cells divide. Low-grade tumors grow slowly. Neuroendocrine carcinomas are high grade and grow quickly, and they are treated more like other fast-growing cancers.

Symptoms of Neuroendocrine Tumors

Many NETs cause no symptoms for years. When they do, signs depend on where the tumor is and what it makes:

  • Flushing, a sudden warmth and redness of the face and neck.
  • Diarrhea that keeps coming back.
  • Wheezing or shortness of breath that comes and goes.
  • Belly pain, bloating or a change in bowel habits.
  • Blood in the stool or bleeding from the rectum.
  • Episodes of shakiness, sweating or confusion from low blood sugar.
  • Stomach ulcers or heartburn that keep returning.
  • Weight loss or tiredness you cannot explain.

Flushing, diarrhea and wheezing together are called carcinoid syndrome. It usually means a tumor has reached the liver and its hormones are reaching the bloodstream.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Severe flushing with dizziness or a sudden drop in blood pressure, especially during a procedure or surgery.
  • Confusion, a seizure or passing out, which can come from very low blood sugar.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Vomiting blood, or bleeding from the rectum that will not stop.
  • Sudden, severe belly pain or a swollen belly with vomiting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Flushing or diarrhea that is much worse than your usual pattern.
  • Shakiness or sweating that improves after you eat or drink something sugary.
  • Swelling in your ankles or legs that is new.
  • Yellowing of your skin or eyes.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Neuroendocrine Tumors

NETs begin when changes in a neuroendocrine cell's DNA let it grow out of control. For most people, what causes those changes is unknown, and no avoidable cause has been found. A small share of tumors come from an inherited gene change passed down in a family.

Risk Factors for Neuroendocrine Tumors

Most people with a NET have no known risk factor. Things linked to a higher chance include:

  • An inherited syndrome, such as multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1, von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, neurofibromatosis type 1 or tuberous sclerosis complex.
  • A family history of neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Older age; most are found after 50.
  • Long-term stomach conditions that lower stomach acid, linked with some stomach NETs.
  • Being a woman, for some types.

Diagnosis of Neuroendocrine Tumors

Diagnosis starts with your history and an exam. Tests may include:

  • Blood and urine tests that measure hormones or the substances they break down into, such as chromogranin A and 5-HIAA.
  • Imaging. A CT scan or MRI shows the tumor and whether it has spread, often to the liver.
  • A special PET scan. A small dose of a tracer that attaches to NET cells lights them up on a PET/CT scan, finding tumors other scans can miss.
  • Endoscopy. A colonoscopy, upper endoscopy or endoscopic ultrasound looks inside the digestive tract and can take a sample.
  • Biopsy. A pathologist studies the tissue to confirm a NET and measure its grade.

Some people are also offered genetic counseling to look for an inherited syndrome.

Treatment Options for Neuroendocrine Tumors

Treatment depends on where the tumor is, its grade, whether it makes hormones and whether it has spread.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery is the main treatment for a tumor that has not spread, and it can cure it. A small tumor in the rectum or stomach can sometimes be removed through an endoscope. When a tumor has reached the liver, removing what can be removed, tumor ablation, tumor embolization or radioembolization can shrink or control it.

Medicines

  • Somatostatin analogs, given as a shot once a month, calm hormone symptoms such as flushing and diarrhea and can slow tumor growth.
  • Targeted radioactive treatment, called peptide receptor radionuclide therapy, sends radiation through the bloodstream straight to the tumor cells.
  • Targeted therapy pills can slow some tumors, especially those in the pancreas.
  • Chemotherapy is used for some pancreatic NETs and for fast-growing carcinomas.

Radiation

Radiation therapy may ease pain or treat a tumor that surgery cannot reach.

Some small, slow-growing tumors are watched with regular scans before any treatment. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page to see those open for neuroendocrine tumors. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Neuroendocrine Tumors

Many people live with a NET as a long-term condition, with treatment and scans spread over years. Keeping a diary of flushing, diarrhea and what sets them off, such as alcohol, large meals or stress, helps your team adjust your medicine. A dietitian can help if diarrhea makes it hard to keep weight on. People with carcinoid syndrome have regular heart checks, because the hormones can affect heart valves. Support groups and integrative medicine help you and your family cope.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if your symptoms change or a new one appears. Before any surgery or procedure, tell every doctor you have a NET, since you may need medicine beforehand. Bring a list of your medicines and supplements and your questions: where the tumor started, its grade, whether it makes hormones, and how often you need scans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a neuroendocrine tumor cancer?

Most can spread and are treated as cancer, though many grow very slowly. Your pathology report gives the grade, which tells you how it is likely to behave.

Why did it take so long to find?

Flushing and diarrhea look like many common problems, and many tumors cause no symptoms at all. Long delays before diagnosis are common with NETs.

Can I live a normal life with a NET?

Many people do, working and traveling for years with regular monitoring. A slow-growing tumor that has spread can often be controlled for a long time.

Will I need treatment for the rest of my life?

If the tumor is removed completely, you will have follow-up scans. If it has spread, you may take a monthly shot or other treatment for years, adjusted as needed.

Should my family be checked?

Ask about genetic counseling, especially if you are young, have more than one tumor, or have relatives with similar tumors.

Who Treats It and Where

Neuroendocrine tumors are treated by surgical oncologists, endocrinologists, gastroenterologists, medical oncologists, interventional radiologists and nuclear medicine physicians, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Endocrine Cancer Center team of endocrinologists, surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses diagnoses and treats neuroendocrine tumors, using PET scans to find them. At Orlando Health Cancer Institute in St. Petersburg, a general surgical oncologist treats neuroendocrine tumors. Radiation therapy, infusion and nurse navigators are part of care.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Treats neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas, including insulinomas, gastrinomas and other hormone-making tumors, with surgery and treatments for tumors in the liver.
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Cancer

Surgeons and oncologists remove or control neuroendocrine tumors, many of which grow slowly over years.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find many of these tumors during colonoscopy or endoscopy and can remove small ones.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Endocrinology

Endocrinologists test hormone levels and treat the flushing, diarrhea and blood sugar changes these tumors cause.

Learn More About Endocrinology
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer starts in the cells of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps you digest food and control...

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Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

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Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

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Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Treatments
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/gi-neuroendocrine-tumors/patient/gi-neuroendocrine-treatment-pdq
  2. National Cancer Institute. Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/pancreatic/patient/pnet-treatment-pdq
  3. American Cancer Society. Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine (Carcinoid) Tumors.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/gastrointestinal-neuroendocrine-tumors.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Neuroendocrine Tumors.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  5. MedlinePlus. Carcinoid Tumors.
    https://medlineplus.gov/carcinoidtumors.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or feeling full fast, are easy to mistake for everyday problems, so a change that lasts deserves a check. Orlando Health gynecologic oncologists diagnose and treat it.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because bloating or belly pain kept coming back, because a scan found a mass on an ovary, or because a doctor has just told you the word cancer. A mass on an ovary is common, and most are cysts or growths that are not cancer, so the first step is finding out exactly what it is.

Ovarian cancer is less common than many other cancers, and it can be hard to find early because there is no screening test that works for people at average risk. Many of these cancers are now thought to start in the fallopian tubes and spread to the ovaries, which is why ovarian, fallopian tube and primary peritoneal cancers are treated as one disease. Treatment has improved, and newer medicines help many people keep the cancer under control for longer.

This page explains what ovarian cancer is, the signs to know, what raises the risk, how it is found and treated, and what life can look like during and after treatment.

What Is Ovarian Cancer?

Ovarian cancer forms when cells in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the peritoneum, the lining of the belly, grow out of control. It is one of the gynecologic cancers. About 1 in 91 women will be diagnosed with it in their lifetime, and about half are 63 or older at diagnosis.

The main kinds are:

  • Epithelial ovarian cancer: starts in the cells that cover the ovary or line the fallopian tube. About 9 in 10 ovarian cancers are this kind, and high-grade serous cancer is the most common type.
  • Germ cell tumors: start in the cells that make eggs. They are rare, most often affect teens and young women, and usually respond well to treatment.
  • Stromal tumors: start in the tissue that holds the ovary together and makes hormones. They are rare and are often found early.

Symptoms of Ovarian Cancer

Early ovarian cancer often causes no symptoms, or symptoms that feel like common stomach or bladder problems. Signs can include:

  • Bloating or a belly that swells.
  • Pain in the belly or pelvis.
  • Feeling full quickly or having trouble eating.
  • Needing to pass urine more often or more urgently.
  • Tiredness, back pain, constipation or pain during sex.

What sets these apart is that they are new and happen most days. If one of them lasts more than a few weeks, see your doctor.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Severe belly pain that comes on suddenly.
  • Vomiting along with being unable to pass gas or have a bowel movement.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, coughing up blood or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A belly that is swelling quickly or feels tight and full.
  • Swelling, pain or warmth in one leg.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts when cells build up changes in their genes that let them grow out of control. Most of these changes happen during a person's life and have no known cause. About 1 in 5 ovarian cancers comes from an inherited gene change, most often in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes or the genes of Lynch syndrome. Many high-grade serous cancers are thought to begin in cells at the end of the fallopian tube.

Risk Factors for Ovarian Cancer

Some risk factors are part of who you are or your history:

  • Being older, especially after menopause.
  • An inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 change, or Lynch syndrome.
  • A mother, sister or daughter with ovarian cancer, or a family history of breast or colorectal cancer.
  • Endometriosis.
  • Never having given birth.
  • Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, which makes BRCA changes more likely.

Others are linked to health and medicines:

  • Taking estrogen hormone therapy after menopause.
  • Excess weight.
  • Smoking, for one rare type.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get ovarian cancer.

Prevention of Ovarian Cancer

There is no routine screening for ovarian cancer for people at average risk, because the tests available have not been shown to save lives. Some things lower the risk. Taking birth control pills for several years, pregnancy and breastfeeding are each linked to a lower risk. Some people choose to have their fallopian tubes removed when they have surgery for another reason, or instead of having their tubes tied.

For people with a BRCA change or Lynch syndrome, surgery to remove the ovaries and fallopian tubes after childbearing lowers the risk by a great deal. Genetic counseling helps you weigh the timing and choices if ovarian or breast cancer runs in your family.

Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer

Your doctor starts with your symptoms, your family history and a pelvic exam. Tests that help include:

  • A transvaginal ultrasound, which uses a small probe to show the ovaries and any mass in detail.
  • A CT scan of the belly, pelvis and chest, and sometimes an MRI or PET-CT scan, to see whether cancer has spread.
  • A tumor marker test called CA-125. A high level can point toward cancer, though other conditions raise it too.
  • A biopsy, which confirms cancer. It is often taken during surgery, or with a needle when surgery will come later.

Everyone diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer is advised to have genetic testing, and the tumor itself may have molecular profiling. Both help choose medicines.

Treatment Options for Ovarian Cancer

Most people have both surgery and chemotherapy. Your plan depends on the type, the stage, your health and your wishes, including whether you hope to have children.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery by a gynecologic oncologist both stages the cancer and removes as much of it as possible. It often removes the uterus, both ovaries and fallopian tubes, the omentum (a fatty layer in the belly) and nearby lymph nodes. When cancer has spread through the belly, the surgeon may remove tissue from other organs too, and guidelines favor an open operation. Some early cancers can be removed through small incisions with robotic surgery. For some early or germ cell cancers in young women, surgery can leave one ovary and the uterus so pregnancy stays possible. Some people with advanced cancer are candidates for HIPEC, heated chemotherapy given inside the belly during surgery.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy, usually after surgery and sometimes before it to shrink the cancer first.
  • Targeted therapy, such as PARP inhibitors taken by mouth after chemotherapy to keep the cancer from returning, especially with a BRCA change.
  • Hormone therapy for some slow-growing types.
  • Immunotherapy for a few cancers with certain markers.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Ovarian Cancer

Removing both ovaries brings on menopause for anyone who has not reached it, and your team can help with hot flashes, sleep and bone health. Chemotherapy can cause tiredness, hair loss and numbness or tingling in the hands and feet, and many of these ease after treatment ends. Eating small meals often helps when your belly feels full. After treatment, you will have regular visits, exams and sometimes CA-125 tests and scans. Some people take a maintenance medicine for months or years. Integrative medicine such as counseling, nutrition, yoga and arts programs, cancer rehabilitation and support groups help many people through treatment and after.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new bloating, belly pain, trouble eating or side effects. Bring your medicines, your family history of cancer and your questions: what type and stage the cancer is, what surgery will remove, whether genetic testing is advised, and what maintenance treatment might mean for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a Pap test find ovarian cancer?

No. A Pap test checks the cervix for cervical cancer. Tell your doctor about any lasting bloating, belly pain or change in eating.

Does a mass on my ovary mean cancer?

Usually not. Most ovarian masses are not cancer. Imaging, blood tests and sometimes surgery tell them apart.

Should my family be tested?

If you have a BRCA or Lynch syndrome change, your parents, siblings and children can be tested too. Genetic counseling helps your family decide.

Can ovarian cancer come back?

It can, especially when it is found at a later stage. Maintenance medicines lower that chance, and a cancer that returns can often be treated again.

Will I go through menopause?

If both ovaries are removed and you have not reached menopause, yes. Your team can help with the symptoms and with protecting your bones and heart.

Who Treats It and Where

Ovarian cancer is cared for by gynecologic oncologists, medical oncologists, genetic counselors and nurse navigators.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Gynecologic Cancer Center treats ovarian cancer with gynecologic oncologists, nurse practitioners and oncology nurses, and offers robotic surgery, fertility-sparing surgery for certain cancers, chemotherapy and a nurse navigator for gynecologic cancers. It partners with Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies for surgery.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for ovarian cancer close to home.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Nutrition, counseling, pain care, yoga and Arts in Medicine for people in treatment and after.
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Cancer

Gynecologic oncologists stage and remove ovarian cancer in surgery, then plan chemotherapy and maintenance medicines.

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Radiology

Radiologists read transvaginal ultrasound and CT scans that size an ovarian mass and show whether cancer has spread.

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Women's

Gynecologists evaluate pelvic masses and lasting bloating with ultrasound and refer a suspicious mass for cancer care.

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Conditions
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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

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Biopsy

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Ovarian Epithelial, Fallopian Tube, and Primary Peritoneal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/ovarian/patient/ovarian-epithelial-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Ovarian Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/ovarian-cancer.html
  3. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Ovarian Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/ovarian-cancer-screening
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Ovarian Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer starts in the cells of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps you digest food and control blood sugar. It often causes few signs early on, so a fast, clear plan matters. Treatment combines surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, chosen for where the tumor is and how far it reaches.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Hearing the words pancreatic cancer can stop you in your tracks, and it is natural to search for answers right away. You may have had a scan for belly or back pain, yellowing skin or weight loss you could not explain, or a doctor may have found something during a test for another reason.

The pancreas makes the juices that break down food and the hormones, such as insulin, that keep blood sugar steady. Most pancreatic cancers start in the cells that line its ducts. Because the pancreas lies deep in the belly, a tumor can grow for some time before it causes trouble, which is why many people learn of it after it has begun to spread.

What happens next depends on whether the tumor can be removed, and that is decided by detailed scans and a team of specialists looking at them together. Treatments keep improving.

This page covers the signs of pancreatic cancer, its causes, how it is found, the treatments available and life during and after treatment.

What Is Pancreatic Cancer?

The pancreas is about six inches long and shaped a little like a flat pear, tucked behind the stomach near the spine. A tumor may start in the head, the wide end beside the small intestine, or in the body and tail.

There are two main groups:

  • Exocrine tumors start in the cells that make digestive juices. Most are ductal adenocarcinomas, which make up about 9 in 10 pancreatic cancers.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors start in the cells that make hormones. They are much less common and often grow more slowly. Learn more on the neuroendocrine tumors page.

Some fluid-filled growths, called cystic neoplasms, can turn into cancer over years. Many are watched with regular scans, and some are removed.

It is found most often in people over 65.

Symptoms of Pancreatic Cancer

Early pancreatic cancer often causes no symptoms. As a tumor grows, you may notice:

  • Yellow skin or eyes (jaundice), often with itchy skin, dark urine and pale or greasy stools. This happens when a tumor in the head of the pancreas blocks the bile duct.
  • Pain in the upper belly that may spread to the back.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain, loss of appetite or feeling full quickly.
  • Nausea or vomiting.
  • New diabetes, or diabetes that suddenly becomes hard to control.
  • Tiredness that does not go away with rest.
  • A blood clot, which can show up as pain and swelling in one leg.

Many of these signs have more common causes, and a doctor can find out which.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing, which can mean a blood clot has traveled to the lungs.
  • Vomiting blood, or black, tarry stools.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Sudden, severe belly pain.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Yellowing of your skin or eyes that is new or getting worse.
  • Pain and swelling in one leg.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Belly pain that your usual medicine does not ease.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer begins when changes in the DNA of pancreas cells let them grow out of control. What sets off those changes is not fully understood. Some are inherited, and most build up over a lifetime. In most people, no single cause is ever found, and nothing you did or did not do is to blame.

Risk Factors for Pancreatic Cancer

You are more likely to develop pancreatic cancer if you:

  • Smoke. Tobacco is one of the strongest risk factors, and smokers are about twice as likely to get it.
  • Are over 65.
  • Have obesity.
  • Have type 2 diabetes or chronic pancreatitis, a long-lasting inflammation of the pancreas.
  • Have a parent, brother, sister or child with pancreatic cancer.
  • Have an inherited gene change, such as BRCA1 or BRCA2, or have Lynch syndrome or familial pancreatitis. Inherited syndromes explain about 1 in 10 cases.
  • Drink heavily.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get pancreatic cancer, and many people who get it have none.

Prevention of Pancreatic Cancer

There is no sure way to prevent pancreatic cancer, but some steps lower the risk:

  • Do not smoke, or get help to quit. The risk falls over the years after quitting.
  • Keep a healthy weight with regular activity.
  • Eat plenty of vegetables, fruit and whole grains, and limit red and processed meats.
  • Limit alcohol.

There is no screening test for people at average risk. If pancreatic cancer runs in your family, ask about genetic counseling; some people at high risk are offered regular scans.

Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer

Diagnosis starts with your symptoms, your history and an exam. Tests may include:

  • Imaging. A CT scan or MRI made for the pancreas shows the tumor, its size and whether it touches nearby blood vessels.
  • Endoscopic ultrasound. A thin, flexible tube with a camera and small ultrasound probe is passed through the mouth into the small intestine to see the pancreas up close, often taking a sample at the same time.
  • Biopsy. A small piece of tissue is removed and studied under a microscope, which is usually needed to confirm cancer.
  • Blood tests, including a tumor marker test called CA 19-9 and tests of liver function.
  • Molecular profiling of the tumor, which can point to treatments that fit it.

Doctors then place the cancer in one of four groups: resectable (it can be removed), borderline resectable, locally advanced, or metastatic (it has spread to distant organs).

Treatment Options for Pancreatic Cancer

Treatment usually combines surgery, chemotherapy and sometimes radiation, chosen for your group, your health and your wishes.

Surgery

Surgery offers the best chance of long-term control when the whole tumor can be removed. The Whipple procedure removes the head of the pancreas with part of the small intestine, the gallbladder and nearby lymph nodes. A distal pancreatectomy removes the body and tail, often with the spleen. Both can sometimes be done through small incisions, with robotic help. Learn more about pancreatic surgery and robotic surgery.

Medicines

Chemotherapy is part of almost every plan. It may come before surgery to shrink the tumor, after surgery to lower the chance of return, or as the main treatment when surgery is not possible. Targeted therapy may help when profiling finds a matching gene change, and immunotherapy helps a small group of tumors with certain features. Many people receive treatment through infusion therapy.

Radiation

Radiation therapy, including stereotactic body radiation therapy and proton therapy, may be used with chemotherapy or to ease pain.

Easing Symptoms

A small tube called a stent can hold a blocked bile duct open. Medicines and nerve blocks ease pain.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page to see those open for pancreatic cancer. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Pancreatic Cancer

Eating well is one of the hardest parts of treatment. A dietitian can help you keep weight on, and enzyme capsules taken with meals help your body absorb food. Your blood sugar may need watching, especially after surgery. A short walk most days helps with tiredness. Supportive and palliative care, which focuses on comfort and quality of life, can begin at diagnosis alongside treatment. Counseling and integrative medicine help you and your family cope. After treatment, you will have regular visits and scans.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if your symptoms change, if eating becomes hard, or if pain is not controlled. Bring a list of your medicines and supplements, the names of relatives who have had cancer, and your questions: which group your cancer is in, whether surgery is possible, what treatment comes first, and who to call after hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can pancreatic cancer be cured?

It can be when the whole tumor is removed with surgery, usually along with chemotherapy. When surgery is not possible, treatment can control the cancer, ease symptoms and help you live longer and feel better.

Why are so many tests needed before treatment starts?

Detailed scans show whether the tumor touches major blood vessels, which decides whether surgery comes first or chemotherapy does.

Should I get a second opinion?

Many people do, and your care team expects it. A second look at your scans can confirm the plan before major surgery.

Will I need to change how I eat?

Often, yes. Smaller, more frequent meals, enzyme capsules and help from a dietitian make eating easier and help you keep up your strength.

Should my family be tested?

Doctors now suggest genetic testing for everyone with pancreatic cancer. If a gene change is found, relatives can learn their own risk through genetic counseling.

Who Treats It and Where

Pancreatic cancer is treated by surgical oncologists, gastroenterologists who specialize in endoscopy, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists, working together.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its Pancreatic Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic brings surgeons, endoscopy physicians, oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, palliative medicine and nutrition specialists together to make one plan. The clinic aims to call you back within 24 hours and schedule your first visit within a week. Its surgeons perform the Whipple procedure with robotic help.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Radiation and proton therapy, infusion, nurse navigators for gastrointestinal cancers, and support from diagnosis through survivorship.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for pancreatic cancer.
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Pancreatic surgeons and oncologists combine surgery, chemotherapy and radiation in one plan for pancreatic cancer.

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Colorectal Polyps

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Treatments
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Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

Learn More About Tumor Marker Test
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Pancreatic Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/pancreatic/patient/pancreatic-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Pancreatic Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/pancreatic-cancer.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Pancreatic Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  4. MedlinePlus. Pancreatic Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/pancreaticcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

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Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very rare, and most problems with these glands are not cancer. The usual first sign is a high calcium level. Surgery to remove the gland and the tissue around it is the main treatment.

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This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a routine blood test showed a high calcium level, and more tests pointed to a parathyroid gland. Perhaps you have felt tired, thirsty or achy for a while, or had a kidney stone. Or a surgeon has told you that a gland removed during an operation turned out to be cancer. Each of these is a lot to take in.

Parathyroid problems are common, and almost all of them come from a benign growth called an adenoma. Parathyroid cancer is rare: fewer than one in a hundred people with an overactive parathyroid gland have it. It tends to grow slowly, and surgery that removes all of it gives the best chance of a cure.

This page explains what the parathyroid glands do, the signs of a high calcium level, how parathyroid cancer is found and how it is treated.

What Is Parathyroid Cancer?

Most people have four parathyroid glands, each about the size of a grain of rice, usually behind the thyroid gland in the lower front of the neck. They make parathyroid hormone, which keeps the calcium in your blood in a narrow, healthy range. Calcium matters for your bones, nerves, muscles and heart.

When a parathyroid gland grows and makes too much hormone, calcium in the blood climbs. This is called hyperparathyroidism. It has three possible causes:

  • An adenoma, a benign growth in one gland. This is by far the most common cause.
  • Hyperplasia, when all four glands grow larger.
  • Parathyroid cancer, a cancer in one gland. It is very rare, usually found in people in their 40s and 50s, and affects men and women about equally.

Parathyroid cancer usually makes much more hormone than an adenoma, so calcium levels tend to be higher. Over time it can return in the neck or spread to the lungs, bones or liver, which is why follow-up care continues for years. A small group of parathyroid cancers make no extra hormone and are found as a lump in the neck.

The parathyroid glands are part of the endocrine system. Learn more about the related cancers on the endocrine cancer page.

Symptoms of Parathyroid Cancer

Most signs come from a high calcium level. They can build slowly and are easy to blame on something else:

  • Tiredness, weakness or trouble concentrating.
  • Thirst and needing to urinate often.
  • Nausea, poor appetite or constipation.
  • Bone pain or a bone that breaks easily.
  • Kidney stones, which can cause sharp pain in the back or side.
  • Low mood or feeling anxious.
  • A lump in the neck, or a voice that becomes hoarse.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Sudden confusion, extreme sleepiness or fainting.
  • Vomiting so often you cannot keep fluids down, with severe weakness.
  • Chest pain, trouble breathing, or a racing or uneven heartbeat.
  • Neck swelling after surgery that makes it hard to breathe or swallow.
  • Muscle cramps or spasms that do not stop, after neck surgery.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Tingling around your mouth or in your fingertips after neck surgery.
  • Thirst, urination or constipation that is getting worse.
  • Pain in your back or side that could be a kidney stone.
  • A hoarse voice that is new, or that has not improved since surgery.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer begins when changes in a gland cell's DNA let it grow out of control. For most people, what causes those changes is unknown, and no habit or exposure has been shown to cause it. A small share of cases are linked to an inherited gene change.

Risk Factors for Parathyroid Cancer

Most people with parathyroid cancer have no known risk factor. Things linked to a higher chance include:

  • Hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumor syndrome, an inherited condition that also causes growths in the jaw and kidneys. It comes from a change in a gene called CDC73.
  • Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1, rarely.
  • Radiation to the head or neck in the past.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will develop parathyroid cancer.

Diagnosis of Parathyroid Cancer

Diagnosis starts with a physical exam, including a feel of your neck, and a detailed history of your health and your family's.

  • Blood tests measure calcium and parathyroid hormone. Very high levels of both can point toward cancer. Urine tests and kidney function tests are often done too.
  • Imaging. A neck ultrasound and a sestamibi scan, which uses a small amount of a tracer that parathyroid tissue takes up, find the gland that is overactive. A CT scan, MRI or PET/CT scan checks whether it has spread.
  • A bone density scan shows whether high calcium has thinned your bones.
  • Pathology after surgery. A needle biopsy is usually avoided, because it can spread cancer cells. Most often the diagnosis is made when a pathologist studies the gland after it is removed.
  • Genetic counseling may be offered, especially for a younger person or when relatives have had parathyroid problems.

Treatment Options for Parathyroid Cancer

Surgery is the preferred treatment. Medicines and other treatments help control calcium and treat cancer that returns.

Procedures and Surgery

When cancer is suspected before surgery, the surgeon removes the gland in one piece along with the tissue around it, which may include part of the thyroid gland and nearby lymph nodes. Removing it whole, with a margin of healthy tissue, gives the best chance of a cure. A benign adenoma is often removed through a small incision, about an inch wide, in a minimally invasive radioguided parathyroidectomy. When the gland proves to be cancer only after it is removed, a second operation may be advised. Learn more about cancer surgery. If the cancer returns, more surgery is often the first choice.

Medicines

  • Calcium-lowering medicines help the body handle extra parathyroid hormone or protect the bones. They are used when surgery cannot remove all the cancer.
  • Fluids through a vein bring a very high calcium level down quickly.
  • Chemotherapy and targeted therapy are used for some cancers that have spread.

Radiation

Radiation therapy may be given to the neck after surgery, or to ease bone pain where cancer has spread.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Parathyroid Cancer

Right after surgery, your calcium can drop below normal for a while, and you may take calcium and vitamin D pills until it returns to normal. After that, blood tests for calcium and parathyroid hormone continue for life, because a rise is often the first sign the cancer has returned, sometimes years later. Drinking enough water helps your kidneys while calcium is high. A bone density scan tracks how your bones recover. Integrative medicine and support groups help you and your family cope.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if the tiredness, thirst or aches you had before surgery come back, or if a lab result shows your calcium rising. Bring a list of your medicines and supplements, including any calcium or vitamin D, and your questions: whether all the cancer was removed, how often your blood is checked and what a change would mean.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a high calcium level mean I have cancer?

Rarely. Most high calcium from a parathyroid gland comes from a benign adenoma. Your tests and the surgery give the answer.

Why was I told I had cancer only after surgery?

Parathyroid cancer can look like a benign growth on scans, and a needle biopsy is usually avoided. A pathologist studying the whole gland makes the diagnosis.

Can I live without a parathyroid gland?

Yes. The remaining glands usually keep your calcium normal, though it can take a few weeks after surgery for them to take over.

Will I need to take calcium pills?

Sometimes, for a short time after surgery while the other glands recover. Your team checks your blood and tells you when to stop.

Can parathyroid cancer come back?

It can, sometimes years later, which is why your calcium and hormone levels are checked for life. Found early, a return can often be treated with more surgery.

Who Treats It and Where

Parathyroid cancer is treated by endocrine and head and neck surgeons, endocrinologists, pathologists, radiologists and oncologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Endocrine Cancer Center treats cancers of the parathyroid, thyroid and adrenal glands with a team of fellowship-trained endocrinologists, surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses. Care includes hormone tests, imaging, genetic testing, parathyroid surgery including minimally invasive radioguided parathyroidectomy, radiation therapy and medicines. It sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
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Cancer

Surgeons remove the affected gland with the tissue around it, the treatment most likely to cure parathyroid cancer.

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Parathyroid Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/parathyroid/patient/parathyroid-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Parathyroid Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/parathyroid-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Parathyroid Disorders.
    https://medlineplus.gov/parathyroiddisorders.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

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Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in skin color. Found early, it can often be treated in ways that keep the penis and how it works.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Perhaps you have noticed a sore, a growth or a patch of changed skin on your penis that has not gone away. Perhaps a biopsy has already shown cancer. It is a hard thing to talk about, and many men wait months before seeing a doctor. Urologists see these concerns often, and an early visit makes a real difference.

Penile cancer is rare in the United States. Most cases are squamous cell carcinoma, which begins in the flat cells of the skin, most often on the head of the penis or the foreskin. It usually grows slowly and is visible, which means it can be found early.

When it is caught early, penile cancer can often be treated with creams, laser, a minor operation or surgery that removes only the affected skin. For cancer that has grown deeper, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are effective, and reconstruction can restore appearance and function.

This page covers the symptoms, causes, risk factors, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of penile cancer.

What Is Penile Cancer?

Penile cancer begins when cells in or on the penis grow out of control. It accounts for fewer than 1 percent of cancers in men in the United States, and most men diagnosed are over 55.

Most penile cancers are squamous cell carcinoma. Rarer types include melanoma, basal cell carcinoma and sarcoma. Before cancer forms, the skin may show precancerous changes called penile intraepithelial neoplasia, or carcinoma in situ, which affect only the top layer of skin and can be treated before they become invasive.

Penile cancer can spread first to the lymph nodes in the groin, which is why doctors check those nodes closely. It is part of the family of urologic cancers.

Symptoms of Penile Cancer

The first sign is usually a change in the skin, most often on the head of the penis or the foreskin:

  • A sore or ulcer that does not heal, which may bleed and is often painless.
  • A lump or growth, including small crusty bumps or flat, bluish-brown growths.
  • Thickening or a change in skin color.
  • A red, velvety rash under the foreskin.
  • Discharge with a bad smell under the foreskin.
  • Swelling at the end of the penis, or lumps in the groin from swollen lymph nodes.

Many of these changes have other causes, such as infections or skin conditions. Any change that lasts more than four weeks should be checked by a doctor.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Being unable to pass any urine.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A sore or growth on the penis that is bleeding, growing or getting more painful.
  • Redness, warmth, swelling or drainage at a surgery site, or a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after surgery.
  • Trouble passing urine, or a stream that has changed after surgery.
  • New swelling in a leg or the groin after lymph node surgery.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Penile Cancer

Penile cancer starts with changes in the DNA of skin cells. Infection with high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV) causes many of these changes; HPV is linked to about half of penile cancers. Other cancers develop after years of irritation and inflammation under the foreskin, especially when it cannot be pulled back to clean.

Risk Factors for Penile Cancer

You are more likely to develop penile cancer if you:

  • Have an HPV infection, or many sexual partners.
  • Were not circumcised as a child.
  • Have phimosis, a tight foreskin that cannot be pulled back.
  • Smoke or use other tobacco.
  • Are over 55.
  • Have a skin condition such as lichen sclerosus, or had psoriasis treated with light therapy and the drug psoralen.
  • Have HIV or another condition that weakens the immune system.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get penile cancer.

Prevention of Penile Cancer

You can lower your risk:

  • Get the HPV vaccine. It is recommended for all children at age 11 or 12 and can be given through age 26, and some adults up to 45 may benefit.
  • Use condoms, which lower the chance of HPV infection.
  • If you are not circumcised, pull back the foreskin and wash underneath it every day.
  • Do not smoke, and quit if you do.
  • Check your penis for changes and see your doctor about any that last.

Diagnosis of Penile Cancer

Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and examine your penis and the lymph nodes in your groin. Tests may include:

  • Biopsy. A small piece of the changed skin is removed and examined. A biopsy confirms the diagnosis.
  • Imaging. Ultrasound or an MRI shows how deep the tumor has grown. A CT scan or PET-CT checks the lymph nodes and other parts of the body.
  • Lymph node testing. A needle biopsy of a swollen node, or a sentinel lymph node biopsy, which finds and removes the first nodes the cancer would reach to check them for cancer.

Treatment Options for Penile Cancer

Treatment depends on the stage and location of the cancer. Whenever it is safe, the goal is to remove all the cancer while keeping as much of the penis and its function as possible.

Medicines and Skin Treatments

Precancer and very early cancers on the surface may be treated with a cream, such as imiquimod or fluorouracil, applied over several weeks. Laser treatment and freezing (cryotherapy) destroy the abnormal skin.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Circumcision, for cancer limited to the foreskin.
  • Wide local excision or Mohs surgery, which remove the tumor with a margin of healthy skin.
  • Glansectomy, which removes the head of the penis, often with reconstruction using a skin graft.
  • Partial or total penectomy, for larger or deeper tumors. After a total penectomy, the surgeon makes a new opening for urine between the scrotum and anus.
  • Lymph node removal in the groin, when cancer has reached the nodes or is likely to.

Surgeons may use minimally invasive techniques for lymph node surgery, which can mean less pain and a shorter recovery.

Radiation Therapy and Chemotherapy

Radiation therapy can treat some small tumors while keeping the penis, and can treat the lymph nodes. Chemotherapy is used before surgery to shrink large lymph nodes, after surgery when the cancer has spread, and for advanced cancer.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team. Clinical trials may also be an option; see the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Penile Cancer

Follow-up is frequent at first, often every few months for the first two years, because that is when penile cancer is most likely to return. Learn to check your penis and groin, and report changes early.

Treatment can change how you urinate, your sex life and how you feel about your body. Many men keep sexual function after organ-sparing surgery. Counseling, support groups and reconstructive surgery can help, and your care team can connect you with them.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about any new sore, lump or groin swelling, trouble urinating or changes after treatment. Bring your medicine list and your questions: what stage the cancer is, whether organ-sparing treatment is possible, what treatment means for urination and sex, and whether reconstruction is an option.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is penile cancer a sexually transmitted disease?

No, but HPV, which is spread through sexual contact, causes many penile cancers. The cancer itself cannot pass to a partner.

Will I lose my penis?

Most men with early cancer do not. Creams, laser and surgery that removes only the affected skin are used whenever they can treat the cancer safely.

Can I still have sex after treatment?

Many men can, especially after organ-sparing treatment. Your care team can talk with you about what to expect and what can help.

Does circumcision prevent penile cancer?

Circumcision in childhood lowers the risk, mostly by preventing phimosis and irritation. Daily washing under the foreskin, the HPV vaccine and not smoking also lower risk.

Why do my groin lymph nodes need to be checked?

They are the first place penile cancer usually spreads. Checking them shows whether more treatment is needed.

Who Treats It and Where

Penile cancer is treated by urologists and urologic oncologists, often with radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and reconstructive surgeons.

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Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Reconstructive surgeons use skin grafts and other repairs to restore the look and function of the penis after surgery.

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Cancer

Radiation and medical oncologists treat penile cancer that has reached the lymph nodes or spread further.

Learn More About Cancer
Urology

Urologists biopsy changes on the penis and perform organ-sparing surgery, penectomy and groin node removal.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male...

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Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

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Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

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Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to...

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Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Penile Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/penile/patient/penile-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Penile Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/penile-cancer.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Penile Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patients/guidelines/content/PDF/penile-patient.pdf
  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV Vaccine.
    https://www.cdc.gov/hpv/vaccines/index.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis means cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the thin lining of the belly. It most often comes from cancers of the appendix, colon, stomach or ovary. Treatment depends on where it started, and Orlando Health care teams offer medicine and, for some people, surgery with HIPEC.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a scan showed spots on the lining of your belly, because fluid has been building up in your abdomen, or because a surgeon found cancer there during an operation. Hearing that a cancer has spread can feel like the ground has shifted. There are more ways to treat cancer in the belly lining today than there were even a decade ago, and for some people treatment can control it for a long time.

The peritoneum is a smooth layer of tissue that lines the inside of the belly and covers organs such as the intestines and liver. Cancer cells can travel from a tumor across this lining and form small growths. Because the peritoneum has a limited blood supply, chemotherapy given through a vein reaches it less well, which is one reason surgeons and oncologists plan treatment for it together.

This page explains what peritoneal carcinomatosis is, the signs to watch for, how it is found and treated, and what life with it can look like.

What Is Peritoneal Carcinomatosis?

Peritoneal carcinomatosis is cancer that has spread to, or started in, the peritoneum. It is not a single cancer. It is named and treated by the cancer it comes from, so colon cancer in the peritoneum is still colon cancer and is treated with that cancer's medicines.

The most common sources are:

Symptoms of Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Small growths often cause no symptoms and are found on a scan or during surgery. As they grow, signs can include:

  • A swollen or larger belly, often from fluid, called ascites.
  • Bloating, pressure or belly pain.
  • Feeling full quickly, or losing your appetite.
  • Nausea, or a change in bowel habits such as constipation.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain, or weight gain from fluid.
  • Shortness of breath that builds slowly as fluid presses up on the lungs.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Vomiting with a swollen, hard belly and no gas or bowel movement, which can mean a blocked bowel.
  • Severe belly pain that comes on suddenly.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A belly that is filling with fluid faster than before.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • No bowel movement for three days, with cramps.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision or drain site.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Most peritoneal carcinomatosis happens when cells break away from a tumor in a nearby organ and attach to the belly lining, where they grow into many small tumors. This can happen when a tumor grows through the wall of the organ or when a tumor opens during a rupture or an operation. Less often, cancer starts in the peritoneum itself, as with peritoneal mesothelioma, which is linked to asbestos exposure, or primary peritoneal cancer.

Risk Factors for Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

The main risk factor is having one of the cancers that can spread to the lining. The chance is higher when:

  • The cancer is in the appendix, ovary, stomach, colon or pancreas.
  • The tumor has grown through the outer wall of its organ.
  • The tumor is a mucinous or signet ring cell type.
  • The tumor has burst or opened, as a ruptured appendix tumor can.
  • The cancer has already spread to nearby lymph nodes.

For mesothelioma, past exposure to asbestos is the main risk factor.

Diagnosis of Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Your team uses several tests to see how much of the lining is involved and where the cancer began:

  • A CT scan of the chest, belly and pelvis, the usual first test. An MRI or a PET-CT scan may add detail.
  • Diagnostic laparoscopy, a short operation through small cuts that lets the surgeon see the lining directly and take a biopsy. Small growths often show up here before they show on a scan.
  • Fluid testing, where a needle drains fluid from the belly and a pathologist checks it for cancer cells.
  • Blood tests, including tumor marker tests such as CEA, CA-125 or CA 19-9.
  • Molecular profiling, to help choose medicines.

Surgeons often score how much of the belly is involved. That score helps decide whether surgery to remove all the visible tumor is possible.

Treatment Options for Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Your plan depends on where the cancer started, how much of the lining is involved, your health and what matters to you.

Medicines

Chemotherapy is the main treatment for many people, chosen for the cancer it came from. Targeted therapy and immunotherapy are added when the tumor's features call for them.

Procedures and Surgery

For carefully chosen people, surgery called cytoreductive surgery removes all the tumor the surgeon can see. It may include removing parts of the lining and organs such as the gallbladder, spleen or part of the intestine. It is often followed in the same operation by HIPEC: heated chemotherapy circulated through the belly for 90 to 120 minutes, then drained. HIPEC works best when all visible tumor can be removed and for certain tumor types, especially pseudomyxoma peritonei from the appendix. Some people with colon, ovarian or stomach cancer may also be candidates. Your overall health, organ function, nutrition and the amount of disease all guide the decision.

Easing Symptoms

Draining fluid with a needle, placing a drain at home, or a procedure to relieve a blocked bowel can ease pressure and help you eat and breathe more easily. Palliative care can start at any stage.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC is a major operation. It can last many hours, and hospital stays can run two weeks or more, followed by several weeks of recovery at home. Eating often changes for a while, and a dietitian helps you regain weight and strength. Some people live with the condition over years, with treatment that starts and pauses. Regular scans and tumor marker tests watch for change. A nurse navigator helps coordinate visits, and cancer rehabilitation, support groups and integrative therapies help with energy, mood and sleep.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about a growing belly, new pain, trouble eating or side effects. Bring your medicines and your questions: where the cancer started, how much of the lining is involved, whether surgery with HIPEC could be an option, and what each treatment aims to do.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is peritoneal carcinomatosis stage 4 cancer?

For the digestive cancers it counts as stage 4, because the cancer has spread; for ovarian cancer, spread within the belly is stage 3. Either way there are real treatment choices, and some people do well for years.

Who is a candidate for HIPEC?

People whose visible tumor can all be removed, whose tumor type responds, and who are healthy enough for a long operation. A surgeon who performs it can tell you.

Can the fluid in my belly be removed?

Yes. A needle drain can remove it in a short visit, and a drain left in place lets you remove fluid at home.

Will I be able to eat normally?

Many people eat smaller meals for a while. A dietitian can help with foods that are easier to digest and keep up your strength.

Can I get a second opinion?

Yes. Asking for one is common with this diagnosis, and your team can share your scans and reports.

Who Treats It and Where

Peritoneal carcinomatosis is cared for by surgical oncologists, colorectal surgeons, medical oncologists, gynecologic oncologists, radiologists, dietitians and nurse navigators.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Oncologists who plan care together when a cancer of the colon, rectum or stomach has spread within the belly, including cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC for some people.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators by cancer type, infusion, palliative care, and survivorship and support services.
  • Integrative medicine program. Therapies that support well-being alongside treatment, such as yoga, acupuncture and massage.

The Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute also offers cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC.

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Related Pages

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Oncologists treat cancer on the belly lining with chemotherapy, and for some people surgery with HIPEC.

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Surgeons perform the diagnostic laparoscopy and the cytoreductive surgery that removes visible tumor.

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Radiology

Radiologists read the scans that map spread on the lining and drain belly fluid with a needle.

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Stomach Cancer

Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, starts in the lining of the stomach. Its early signs, like indigestion or...

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Pancreatic Cancer

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Ovarian Cancer

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Treatments
CT Scan

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MRI

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Biopsy

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Tumor Marker Test

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Molecular Profiling

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Chemotherapy

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Peritoneal carcinomatosis, NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms.
    https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/peritoneal-carcinomatosis
  2. American Cancer Society. Malignant Ascites and Cancer That Has Spread.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/fluid-in-the-abdomen-ascites.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Peritoneal Disorders.
    https://medlineplus.gov/peritonealdisorders.html
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Colon Cancer and Ovarian Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow a mastectomy or a lumpectomy. It is common, it has a cause, and medicines, therapy and procedures can ease it.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Most of the soreness from breast surgery fades within a few weeks to a few months. For some people, a different kind of pain stays: burning, shooting or tingling along the chest wall, in the armpit or down the arm, sometimes set off by the touch of clothing. It can arrive just as the rest of life after cancer is getting back to normal, and it can feel like something you are expected to put up with.

You do not have to. This kind of pain is called post-mastectomy pain syndrome, and it comes from nerves that were stretched or cut during surgery and healed in an irritated way. It is a recognized condition with a name, a known cause and real treatments. Many people feel better with medicine for nerve pain and physical therapy, and for pain that comes from one scarred nerve, a procedure can help.

This page explains what causes this pain, who is more likely to have it, how it is diagnosed and how it is treated.

What Is Post-Mastectomy Pain?

Post-mastectomy pain syndrome is nerve pain, also called neuropathic pain, that continues after breast cancer surgery in the chest wall, armpit, arm or shoulder. Doctors usually use the name when the pain lasts beyond the normal healing time of about three months. Despite the name, it can follow any breast surgery, including a lumpectomy, and surgery to remove lymph nodes from the underarm.

Studies suggest that 20 to 30 percent of people have it after a mastectomy. It has become less common as surgeons remove fewer lymph nodes than they once did. The pain can be mild or severe, constant or on and off, and it can limit how you use your arm.

Symptoms of Post-Mastectomy Pain

  • Burning, shooting or stabbing pain in the chest wall, armpit or inner upper arm.
  • Tingling, pins and needles or electric shocks.
  • Numbness along with pain in the same area.
  • Pain in or along the surgical scar.
  • Intense itching that is hard to bear.
  • Pain set off by light touch, such as clothing, a bra strap or a seatbelt, or by a certain movement.
  • Shoulder stiffness, often from holding the arm still to avoid the pain.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain that feels different from your usual pain, or trouble breathing.
  • Fainting.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Bleeding that will not stop.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Pain that is quickly getting worse or keeps you from sleeping.
  • New swelling in your arm, hand or chest on the side of your surgery.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at your scar or an incision.
  • A new lump near your scar or in your underarm.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Post-Mastectomy Pain

Many nerves run through the chest wall and underarm on their way to the breast and arm. During breast surgery, and especially when lymph nodes are removed from the underarm, some of these nerves are stretched, bruised or cut. One nerve that is often affected supplies feeling to the inner upper arm.

Nerves heal in unpredictable ways. A cut nerve can form a small, tender knot of scar called a neuroma, which fires pain signals when pressed or tapped. Scar tissue can also trap a nerve. Radiation to the area can add to the irritation. More than one neuroma can form after a single surgery.

Risk Factors for Post-Mastectomy Pain

You are more likely to develop post-mastectomy pain if you:

  • Are younger at the time of surgery.
  • Had many lymph nodes removed from the underarm, rather than a sentinel lymph node biopsy that removes only a few.
  • Had surgery on the upper outer part of the breast or in the underarm.
  • Had radiation therapy after surgery.
  • Had severe pain in the first days after surgery.
  • Have excess weight.
  • Live with anxiety or depression.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will have this pain, and many people with none of them still do.

Diagnosis of Post-Mastectomy Pain

There is no blood test or scan that shows post-mastectomy pain, so diagnosis rests on your story and an exam. Your doctor asks when the pain started, what it feels like, where it travels and what sets it off. A key sign is pain you can bring on by pressing or tapping a specific spot, which points to a scarred nerve.

Your doctor also checks for other causes, such as a frozen shoulder, an infection, a problem with an implant, or lymphedema, which is swelling after lymph nodes are removed. Imaging such as ultrasound or MRI may be used to rule these out.

If one nerve seems to be the source, your doctor may suggest a diagnostic nerve block: a shot of numbing medicine at the tender spot. If the pain goes away while the area is numb, that nerve is the likely cause, which helps show whether a procedure could help.

Treatment Options for Post-Mastectomy Pain

Treatment often combines several approaches, and the aim is less pain and better use of your arm.

Medicines

Medicines made for nerve pain are the usual first step. These include gabapentin or pregabalin, and certain antidepressants such as duloxetine or venlafaxine, which ease nerve pain at their own doses. Creams or patches with lidocaine or capsaicin can numb a small painful area. Ordinary pain relievers help some people less with nerve pain. Your care team adjusts the medicine and dose to you.

Therapy and Rehabilitation

Physical therapy and cancer rehabilitation help loosen the shoulder, stretch tight tissue and scars, and slowly retrain the skin to tolerate touch. Lymphedema therapy helps where swelling adds to the pain. Counseling, relaxation and guided imagery can lower how much the pain takes over daily life.

Procedures and Surgery

Steroid injections at a tender spot, given early, may slow scarring around a nerve. Nerve blocks can ease pain for weeks or longer. When a neuroma is found, surgery can remove it, often through the old scar; the surgeon may bury or wrap the nerve end in nearby muscle so it does not form a new neuroma. Many people have lasting results.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Post-Mastectomy Pain

Keep a simple pain diary: when it hurts, how much, and what sets it off or helps. Soft, tag-free clothing and a well-fitted post-surgery bra can ease touch-sensitive skin. Daily movement of the arm and shoulder, as your therapist teaches, prevents stiffness. Warmth or cool packs help some people. Sleep, activity and mood all affect pain, so tell your team if any of them is suffering. Support groups for breast cancer survivors help many people feel less alone with pain others cannot see.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Talk to your team if pain lasts more than a few months after surgery, gets worse, or keeps you from work, sleep or exercise. Bring your pain diary, a list of your medicines and the dates of your surgery and any radiation. Questions to ask: whether this is nerve pain, which treatments fit you, what side effects to expect, and whether a referral to a pain specialist or surgeon makes sense.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this pain a sign that my cancer is back?

Usually not. This pain comes from nerves injured during surgery. Any new lump, swelling or change near your scar still needs to be checked.

How long does post-mastectomy pain last?

It varies. For some people it eases over months or a few years; for others it lasts longer without treatment. Treatment can shorten it and lower its intensity.

Can I have this pain after a lumpectomy?

Yes. It can follow any breast surgery, especially when lymph nodes are removed from the underarm.

Will I have to take pain medicine forever?

Not necessarily. Some people take nerve pain medicine for a period and then taper off. Others find a procedure ends the need for it.

Does reconstruction cause or fix this pain?

It can go either way. Reconstruction is a separate surgery with its own healing, and some people need treatment for nerve pain afterward. Talk with your surgeon about your own case.

Who Treats It and Where

Post-mastectomy pain is treated by breast surgeons, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, pain specialists, and physical and lymphedema therapists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its breast cancer team offers physical and lymphedema therapy, psychological counseling, support groups and survivorship care for people after breast surgery.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Supportive therapies that can help with pain and stress during and after cancer treatment.
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[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
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Cancer

Your cancer team checks lasting chest or arm pain after breast surgery and plans its treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Pain Management

Pain specialists offer nerve blocks and other treatments for nerve pain that lingers after a mastectomy.

Learn More About Pain Management
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Treatments
Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep...

Learn More About Lumpectomy
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk...

Learn More About Mastectomy
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

Learn More About Lymphedema Therapy

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer in men after skin cancer. Most prostate cancers grow slowly, and when found early, many men have several good choices for care.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe a PSA blood test came back higher than expected, or your doctor felt something during an exam. Maybe you have already been told you have prostate cancer and you are trying to understand what comes next. Either way, you likely have a lot of questions, and it is normal to feel shaken.

Here is what most men find reassuring once they learn more. Prostate cancer is very common, and most of it grows slowly. Many men live for years with a prostate cancer that never causes them harm. Others have a faster-growing type that needs treatment, and finding it before it spreads gives them the widest range of options.

There is rarely a need to decide anything in a single day. Your care team will look at how your cancer behaves, how far it has gone and what matters most to you, then walk you through the options, from watching the cancer closely to surgery, radiation and medicines.

What Is Prostate Cancer?

The prostate is about the size of a walnut. It wraps around the urethra, the tube that carries urine out of the body, just below the bladder and in front of the rectum. Prostate cancer forms when cells in the gland begin to grow out of control.

Almost all prostate cancers are adenocarcinomas, which start in the gland cells that make prostate fluid. Rare types grow faster and are treated differently.

About 1 in 8 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during their lifetime. It is rare before 40, and about 6 in 10 cases are found in men 65 or older.

Symptoms of Prostate Cancer

Early prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms, so many cases are found through a blood test. Later symptoms may include:

  • Trouble urinating, a weak stream or a hard time getting started.
  • Needing to urinate more often, especially at night.
  • Blood in the urine or semen.
  • Trouble getting an erection, or pain with ejaculation.
  • Pain in the back, hips or pelvis that does not go away, which can mean the cancer has reached the bones.

An enlarged prostate or an infection causes most of these far more often than cancer does. They still deserve a visit to your doctor.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels. These can be signs that cancer is pressing on the spinal cord.
  • Being unable to pass any urine at all, with a full, painful bladder.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or shaking chills, in the days after a prostate biopsy.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Blood in your urine that is new or heavier than before.
  • Pain in your back, hips or ribs that is new or getting worse.
  • Pain and swelling in one leg.
  • Burning or pain when you urinate during radiation treatment that keeps you from drinking enough.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts with changes in the DNA of prostate cells that switch off the controls telling a cell when to stop growing. Most of these changes build up over a lifetime; some are inherited from a parent.

Male hormones, such as testosterone, help prostate cancer cells grow, which is why lowering them is one way to treat it.

Risk Factors for Prostate Cancer

You are more likely to develop prostate cancer if you:

  • Are older. Risk rises quickly after 50.
  • Are Black. Black men are more likely to develop prostate cancer, to develop it younger and to have a faster-growing type.
  • Have a father or brother with prostate cancer. This more than doubles the risk, and the risk is higher with several relatives or a relative diagnosed young.
  • Have an inherited gene change, such as BRCA1, BRCA2 or the genes of Lynch syndrome. A family history of breast, ovarian or colon cancer can be a clue.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get prostate cancer. No step is proven to prevent it, though a healthy weight, regular exercise, a smoke-free life and a diet rich in vegetables may lower the risk of an aggressive cancer. A vasectomy does not raise your risk, and vitamin E and selenium supplements have not been shown to help.

Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer

Most prostate cancers are found during prostate cancer screening, with a PSA blood test, a digital rectal exam or both. An abnormal result leads to a closer look.

  • Prostate MRI. Shows suspicious areas and helps decide whether a biopsy is needed.
  • Prostate biopsy. Thin needles remove small samples of tissue, often aimed with MRI images laid over a live ultrasound. A biopsy confirms the diagnosis.
  • Grading. A pathologist gives the cancer a Gleason score, from 6 to 10, also written as a Grade Group from 1 to 5. A higher number means a faster-growing cancer.
  • Staging tests. If the cancer may have spread, your doctor may order a PSMA PET-CT scan, a bone scan or a CT scan.
  • Genetic tests. Testing the tumor or your blood for gene changes can guide treatment and your family's screening. Genetic counseling explains the results.

Your PSA, Grade Group and stage together set a risk group, which guides your choices.

Treatment Options for Prostate Cancer

Watching the Cancer Closely

For a small, slow-growing cancer, active surveillance is often the recommended first choice. You have regular PSA tests, MRI scans and sometimes repeat biopsies, and treatment starts if the cancer grows. Many men avoid treatment side effects for years this way.

Surgery and Focal Treatments

A radical prostatectomy removes the whole prostate and nearby tissue. Most are now done with robotic surgery through a few small incisions. For some early cancers confined to one area, a focal treatment destroys only the cancer and spares the rest of the gland, using focused ultrasound (HIFU), freezing (cryoablation) or water vapor.

Radiation

Radiation therapy can cure prostate cancer that has not spread. Options include external beam radiation over several weeks, stereotactic body radiation therapy in about five sessions, proton therapy and radioactive seeds. A gel rectal spacer can protect the rectum during radiation.

Medicines

Hormone therapy lowers testosterone or blocks it from reaching the cancer. It is often paired with radiation and leads treatment for cancer that has spread. Other medicines include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and radioligand therapy, such as lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan (Pluvicto), which delivers radiation straight to the cancer cells.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team, and many men meet with a urologist, a radiation oncologist and sometimes a medical oncologist before deciding. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Prostate Cancer

Most side effects improve with time and help. Leaking urine is common for weeks or months after surgery, and pelvic floor exercises and cancer rehabilitation speed recovery. Erection problems after surgery or radiation can be treated with medicines and devices.

Hormone therapy can cause hot flashes, tiredness, loss of sex drive and thinner bones; staying active helps.

After treatment you will have regular PSA tests, since a rising PSA is often the first sign of a return. If cancer reaches the bones, see bone metastasis. Talking with other survivors, a counselor or your partner helps with the changes to your body and relationships.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if a side effect is not improving or you have new pain or urinary changes. Before a treatment decision, bring your medicines list and your questions: your Grade Group and risk group, whether active surveillance fits, and how each treatment could affect urinary, bowel and sexual function.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to start treatment right away?

Often not. Many low-risk cancers are safely watched, and even when treatment is advised there is usually time for a second opinion.

Will I lose control of my bladder or my sex life?

Some men have leaking or erection problems, depending on age, health and the treatment chosen. Most leaking improves over months, and erection problems can be treated.

What does my Gleason score mean?

It describes how abnormal the cancer cells look. A 6 (Grade Group 1) grows slowly; 8 to 10 (Grade Groups 4 and 5) grows faster.

Is surgery better than radiation?

For cancer that has not spread, both offer similar chances of cure. They differ in recovery and side effects, so the right choice depends on your cancer, your health and what matters most to you.

Should my family members be tested?

If you have an inherited gene change, or several relatives have had prostate, breast or ovarian cancer, your sons and brothers may need earlier screening.

Who Treats It and Where

Urologists, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists treat prostate cancer, often together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Urologic Cancer Center brings urologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, rehabilitation specialists and oncology nurse navigators together around one treatment plan, with MRI-fusion biopsy, robotic surgery, focal therapies, SBRT, proton therapy and rectal spacers. Care at Orlando Health Cancer Institute locations across Central Florida.
  • Orlando Health Medical Group Urology. Urologists who offer HIFU and MRI-fusion biopsy.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Urology. Urologists who diagnose prostate cancer and treat it with robotic surgery, in the Tampa Bay area.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who treat prostate cancer with chemotherapy and infusion close to home in the Tampa Bay area.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Related Pages

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Cancer

Radiation and medical oncologists treat prostate cancer with radiation, hormone therapy and newer medicines.

Learn More About Cancer
Radiology

Radiologists read the prostate MRI and PSMA PET scans that find, aim at and stage prostate cancer.

Learn More About Radiology
Urology

Urologists diagnose prostate cancer with MRI-guided biopsy and remove the prostate with robotic surgery.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in...

Learn More About Penile Cancer
Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to...

Learn More About Testicular Cancer
Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male...

Learn More About Urologic Cancers
Treatments
Prostate Cancer Screening

Prostate cancer screening checks for prostate cancer before you have symptoms, most often with a PSA blood test. Whether and...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer Screening
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Prostate Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/patient/prostate-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Prostate Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/prostate-cancer.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Key Statistics for Prostate Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/prostate-cancer/about/key-statistics.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Early-Stage Prostate Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  5. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Prostate Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/prostate-cancer-screening
  6. MedlinePlus. Prostate Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/prostatecancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it before it starts. Treatment often combines medicine, radiation and surgery, and Orlando Health care teams plan each step with you to protect bowel control where they can.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be reading this after a colonoscopy found a growth in the rectum, after rectal bleeding led to tests, or after a doctor said the words rectal cancer for the first time. Rectal cancer is very treatable, especially when found early, and treatment has changed a great deal in recent years.

The rectum is where stool is held until a bowel movement. Because it lies deep in the pelvis, close to the muscles that control the bowels, rectal cancer is often treated differently from colon cancer. Many people have chemotherapy and radiation before any surgery, and some respond so well that surgery can wait or may not be needed. When surgery is needed, surgeons aim to keep the muscles that hold stool in whenever it is safe to do so.

This page explains what rectal cancer is, the signs to watch for, what raises the risk, how it is found and treated, and what life during and after treatment can look like.

What Is Rectal Cancer?

Rectal cancer forms when cells in the inner lining of the rectum grow out of control. Together with colon cancer it is called colorectal cancer, one of the most common cancers in the United States. Most people diagnosed are over 50, and the number of cases in adults under 50 has been rising.

The main kinds are:

  • Adenocarcinoma: starts in the gland cells that line the rectum. Most rectal cancers are this kind.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors: start in hormone-making cells and are treated on their own path. See neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Squamous cell cancers low in the rectum, which are treated like anal cancer.

Symptoms of Rectal Cancer

Early rectal cancer often causes no symptoms. When signs appear, they can include:

  • Blood in the stool, bright red or very dark.
  • A change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation or narrower stools, lasting more than a few days.
  • A feeling that your bowel has not emptied after a bowel movement.
  • Pain or pressure in the rectum or lower belly, or cramping and bloating that keeps coming back.
  • Tiredness or weakness from a low red blood cell count.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain.

Hemorrhoids are a common cause of rectal bleeding, and bleeding still deserves a check by a doctor at any age.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Heavy bleeding from the rectum.
  • Severe belly pain, or a swollen, hard belly with vomiting and no gas or bowel movement.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, or coughing or vomiting blood.
  • Black, tarry stools.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • New blood in your stool.
  • Diarrhea that keeps you from eating or drinking for a day.
  • Skin in the treated area that blisters, cracks or weeps during radiation.
  • A stoma that changes color, swells or stops putting out stool.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Rectal Cancer

Nearly all rectal cancers begin as a polyp, a small growth on the inner lining of the rectum. Over years, gene changes can turn some of a polyp's cells into cancer, which can grow through the rectal wall and spread, most often to the liver or lungs. Most polyps never become cancer, and removing them stops the ones that would. Learn more about colorectal polyps.

A small share of rectal cancers come from an inherited gene change, such as Lynch syndrome or familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP).

Risk Factors for Rectal Cancer

Some risk factors are part of who you are:

  • Getting older.
  • A personal history of polyps or colorectal cancer.
  • A parent, sibling or child with colorectal cancer or advanced polyps.
  • Lynch syndrome, FAP or another inherited syndrome.
  • Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis for eight years or more.
  • Radiation to the pelvis for an earlier cancer.

Others are linked to daily life:

  • A diet high in red and processed meat and low in fiber.
  • Little physical activity, and excess weight.
  • Smoking and heavy drinking.
  • Type 2 diabetes.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get rectal cancer.

Prevention of Rectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer screening finds polyps before they turn into cancer, and finds cancer early. Most adults at average risk start at 45 and continue through 75. A colonoscopy every 10 years is one choice; stool tests and sigmoidoscopy are others, and any abnormal result leads to a colonoscopy. If a close relative had colorectal cancer, screening often starts at 40, or 10 years before their age at diagnosis.

A high-fiber diet, regular activity, a healthy weight, limited red meat and alcohol, and a smoke-free life all lower the risk.

Diagnosis of Rectal Cancer

Your doctor starts with your history and a digital rectal exam, a quick check with a gloved finger. A colonoscopy or a shorter scope exam of the rectum shows the growth, and a biopsy taken during it confirms whether it is cancer.

If it is, staging tests show how deep it has grown and whether it has spread:

  • A pelvic MRI, the key test, showing how far the tumor has grown into the rectal wall and nearby tissue.
  • Endoscopic ultrasound, in some cases, to measure an early tumor's depth.
  • A CT scan of the chest, belly and pelvis, to check the liver, lungs and lymph nodes.
  • A CEA blood test, a tumor marker test used to follow treatment.
  • Molecular profiling of the tumor, including a check for mismatch repair (MMR) changes.

Treatment Options for Rectal Cancer

Your plan depends on the stage, where the tumor is, its features, your health and what matters to you.

Medicines and Radiation

For many stage II and III cancers, treatment starts before surgery. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy, often given together, shrink the tumor and lower the chance it returns. When the tumor disappears on exams and scans, some people can follow a close watch-and-wait plan with regular checks instead of surgery right away. For tumors with MMR changes, immunotherapy can work very well. Targeted therapy is used for some cancers that have spread.

Procedures and Surgery

A very early tumor can sometimes be removed through the anus with no cut on the belly. Most people who need surgery have colorectal surgery that removes the part of the rectum with the tumor, the fatty tissue around it and nearby lymph nodes, then rejoins the bowel. A temporary ileostomy often protects the join while it heals. Many of these operations use small incisions, some with robotic surgery.

When a tumor is very low or involves the muscles that control the bowels, an abdominoperineal resection removes the rectum and anus and creates a permanent colostomy. When cancer has spread to the liver, a hepatectomy or tumor ablation may be options.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Rectal Cancer

Radiation can make the skin sore and bowel movements more frequent for a while. After surgery that keeps the anus, many people have urgent or frequent bowel movements at first, and these usually ease over months with diet changes, medicine and pelvic floor therapy. An ostomy nurse teaches stoma care, and people with a stoma return to work, travel and exercise. A nurse navigator helps keep visits and tests on track.

Follow-up includes visits, CEA tests, scans and scope exams for several years. Cancer rehabilitation, support groups and counseling help too.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about new bleeding, pain, bowel changes or side effects. Bring your medicines, your family history and your questions: the stage, whether treatment starts before surgery, whether you will need a stoma, and how the plan may affect bowel, bladder and sexual function.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is rectal cancer curable?

Often, yes. Many rectal cancers found before they spread are cured.

Will I need a permanent colostomy?

Most people do not. Many have a temporary ileostomy that is closed a few months later. A permanent colostomy is needed mainly when the tumor is very low.

Why would I have treatment before surgery?

It can shrink the tumor, lower the chance of return and, for some people, make surgery unnecessary.

Will treatment affect my sex life or fertility?

It can. Pelvic radiation and surgery can affect both, so ask about egg or sperm banking before treatment begins.

Should my family be screened?

Yes. Parents, siblings and children often start screening at 40 or earlier, and genetic counseling can help if you were diagnosed young or several relatives had colorectal cancer.

Who Treats It and Where

Rectal cancer is cared for by colon and rectal surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, gastroenterologists and nurse navigators.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Medical, surgical and radiation oncologists who plan rectal cancer care together, including surgery through small incisions, some with robotic help.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators for gastrointestinal cancers, infusion, radiation including MRI-guided radiation therapy, and survivorship and support. At its St. Petersburg location at Institute Square, colon and rectal surgeons of the Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute offer sphincter-saving surgery for rectal cancer, and the program holds accreditation from the National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for colorectal cancer.
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Cancer

Oncologists plan chemotherapy, radiation and surgery for rectal cancer, often starting treatment before any operation.

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Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons remove rectal tumors and aim to save the muscles that control the bowels.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Radiology

Radiologists read the pelvic MRI that stages rectal cancer and shapes the whole treatment plan.

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Sigmoidoscopy

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Rectal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/rectal-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Colorectal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Colorectal Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/colorectalcancer.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening (2021).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  5. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Rectal Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage or bone. It often shows up as a lump that grows over weeks or months. Teams that include surgeons, oncologists and radiation oncologists plan its care together.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Sarcoma is a word most people have never heard until a doctor says it, and the first questions are often what it is and why it is so rarely talked about. If you have been told a lump or a bone change could be a sarcoma, or you have just learned it is one, it helps to know that care for sarcoma is planned around the exact type and where it is in the body.

Sarcomas are uncommon, making up about 1 in 100 cancers in adults and more in children and teens. There are dozens of types, and they grow in different ways. Some grow slowly and stay in one place. Others grow faster and need treatment that reaches the whole body.

Because sarcoma is rare, the order of tests matters. Imaging usually comes before a biopsy, and the biopsy is planned with the surgeon who will treat it, so that a later operation can remove the tumor cleanly. Most people have surgery, often with radiation or medicines. This page explains the types, signs, causes, tests and treatments, and what life is like afterward.

What Is Sarcoma?

Connective tissues hold the body together and give it shape. Sarcoma forms when cells in one of these tissues begin to grow out of control. There are two main groups.

Soft tissue sarcomas start in fat, muscle, tendons, nerves, blood vessels or the deep layers of the skin. They can form anywhere, most often in the arms and legs, and also in the belly, the chest wall and the back of the abdomen. Common types include:

  • Liposarcoma, in fat tissue.
  • Leiomyosarcoma, in smooth muscle, such as the wall of the uterus or the belly.
  • Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma, in the arms and legs of older adults.
  • Synovial sarcoma, often near a joint.
  • Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), in the wall of the stomach or intestine.
  • Angiosarcoma and Kaposi sarcoma, in the lining of blood or lymph vessels.
  • Rhabdomyosarcoma, in muscle, most common in children.

Bone sarcomas start in bone or cartilage. Osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma are most common in children, teens and young adults; chondrosarcoma and chordoma are more common in adults. Cancer that starts elsewhere and spreads to bone is a different illness; see bone metastasis.

Symptoms of Sarcoma

  • A lump or swelling that is new, growing, or deeper than the skin. It is often painless.
  • Bone pain that comes and goes at first, then grows stronger and may be worse at night.
  • Swelling or a firm area near a bone or joint, or a limp.
  • A bone that breaks with little or no injury.
  • Belly pain or fullness, feeling full quickly, or black stools, with a tumor in the belly.

Most lumps are not cancer. A lump larger than a golf ball, one that is growing, or one deep in the muscle is worth a prompt visit.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Vomiting blood, black or tarry stools, or bleeding that will not stop.
  • Sudden severe pain in a bone, or being unable to put weight on a leg.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after surgery or a biopsy.
  • Redness, warmth, swelling or drainage at an incision.
  • Pain and swelling in one arm or leg.
  • Nausea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking during treatment.
  • Bone pain that is new or getting worse.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Sarcoma

Most sarcomas have no known cause. They begin with changes in the genes of a connective tissue cell that let it grow without the usual limits. These changes usually happen during a person's life rather than being passed down, and nothing the person did caused them. An injury does not cause sarcoma, though it may draw attention to a lump that was already there.

Risk Factors for Sarcoma

You are more likely to develop sarcoma if you:

  • Had radiation therapy for another cancer, usually many years earlier, in the area that was treated.
  • Have an inherited condition such as Li-Fraumeni syndrome, neurofibromatosis type 1, hereditary retinoblastoma or familial adenomatous polyposis. Genetic counseling can help families understand these.
  • Have long-term swelling from lymphedema, which is linked to angiosarcoma.
  • Were exposed to certain chemicals, such as vinyl chloride or some herbicides.
  • Have Paget disease of bone, for bone sarcoma in older adults.
  • Have a weakened immune system and a herpes virus called HHV-8, for Kaposi sarcoma.

Most people with sarcoma have none of these.

Diagnosis of Sarcoma

Your doctor examines the lump or the painful area and asks how long it has been there and whether it has changed. From there:

  • Imaging. An X-ray is often first for a bone problem. An MRI shows a soft tissue lump in detail, and a CT scan is used for the belly and chest.
  • A biopsy. A biopsy, most often a core needle biopsy guided by imaging, removes small samples for a pathologist. It is best planned by the team that will treat the tumor, so the needle path can be removed later with the tumor.
  • Lab tests on the tumor. Molecular profiling finds gene changes that confirm the exact type and can point to targeted medicines.
  • Staging scans. A CT scan of the chest, a PET-CT scan or a bone scan shows whether it has spread.

Treatment Options for Sarcoma

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery to remove the tumor with a margin of healthy tissue around it is the main treatment for most sarcomas. For tumors in an arm or leg, most people have limb-sparing surgery, which removes the cancer and keeps the limb, sometimes with a bone graft, a metal implant or reconstruction of soft tissue. See cancer surgery.

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is often given before or after surgery to lower the chance of the tumor returning. Proton therapy can be used for some sarcomas near sensitive areas, such as the spine, the base of the skull or in children.

Medicines

Chemotherapy is a main treatment for Ewing sarcoma, osteosarcoma and rhabdomyosarcoma and is used for some soft tissue sarcomas. Targeted therapy is a standard treatment for GIST. Immunotherapy helps some types.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team, and depends on the type, size, grade and location of the tumor. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Sarcoma

Recovery and movement. After surgery on an arm or leg, physical and occupational therapy help you regain strength and use. Cancer rehabilitation can begin before surgery and continue for months.

Follow-up. Sarcoma can return in the same place or in the lungs, so expect regular exams and scans for years, more often in the first few. Keep a copy of your treatment summary.

Long-term health. Some chemotherapy and radiation can affect the heart, fertility or bones later on. Children and young adults treated for sarcoma benefit from survivorship care that watches for these effects.

Support. Rare cancers can feel isolating. Counselors, nutritionists and support groups, including groups for people with sarcoma, help you and your family.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if you notice a new lump, swelling near your scar, new bone pain, or a cough that will not go away. Before treatment, bring your imaging discs and reports, a list of your medicines and your questions: the exact type and grade, whether the biopsy was planned with your surgeon, whether radiation comes before or after surgery, how surgery will affect movement, and how follow-up will work.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a lump always a sign of sarcoma?

No. Most lumps are harmless, such as a fatty growth called a lipoma or a cyst. A lump that is growing, larger than a golf ball, or deep in the muscle should be checked.

Will I lose my arm or leg?

Most people do not. Limb-sparing surgery, often with radiation, is the usual approach, and amputation is needed only rarely.

Why does it matter where I have my biopsy?

A biopsy planned by the team that will operate places the needle so its path can be removed with the tumor, which helps the surgery succeed.

Can sarcoma come back after treatment?

It can, most often in the first few years, which is why follow-up scans are frequent at first. A return found early can often be treated again.

Is sarcoma inherited?

Usually not. A small number of sarcomas are linked to inherited conditions. If you were diagnosed young or have family members with cancer, ask about genetic counseling.

Who Treats It and Where

Sarcoma is treated by surgical oncologists and orthopedic oncologists, medical and radiation oncologists, pathologists and rehabilitation therapists working as one team.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Specialists who care for all types of sarcoma, bone and soft tissue cancers, with oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons, psychologists, nutritionists and physical therapists on the team. Treatment includes surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy including proton therapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy. A general surgical oncologist on the institute's team treats soft tissue tumors.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion.

Care is given at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area.

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Physical and occupational therapists help people regain strength and use of an arm or leg after limb-sparing surgery.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Cancer

Surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists plan sarcoma care together around the exact tumor type.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists name the sarcoma type from the biopsy and run gene tests that can point to targeted medicines.

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Conditions
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

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Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Soft Tissue Sarcoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/soft-tissue-sarcoma/patient/adult-soft-tissue-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Soft Tissue Sarcoma.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/soft-tissue-sarcoma.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Bone Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/bone-cancer.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  5. MedlinePlus. Soft Tissue Sarcoma.
    https://medlineplus.gov/softtissuesarcoma.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is the most common cancer in the United States, and when it is found early, nearly every case can be treated successfully, often with a short procedure in the office.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe you have a spot that keeps scabbing, a mole that looks different than it did last year, or a doctor who just told you a biopsy came back as skin cancer. Each of those moments brings questions about how serious it is and what happens next. The answers depend a great deal on the type of skin cancer, and most people have a type that is very treatable.

There are three main types. Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma are the most common and rarely spread when treated early. Melanoma is less common and more likely to spread, which is why finding it early matters so much. Living in a sunny place raises the risk for all three, so in Florida a regular look at your own skin is one of the most useful habits you can build.

This page covers the types, the signs to watch for, causes and risk factors, prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

What Is Skin Cancer?

Skin cancer starts when cells in the outer layer of the skin are damaged and begin to grow out of control. Each type is named for the cell where it begins:

  • Basal cell carcinoma starts in the cells that make new skin. It is the most common type and grows slowly.
  • Squamous cell carcinoma starts in the flat cells near the surface. It is the second most common type and can spread if left untreated.
  • Melanoma starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common and more likely to spread, so it causes most skin cancer deaths.

Rarer types include Merkel cell carcinoma and lymphomas of the skin. Precancerous spots called actinic keratoses can sometimes turn into squamous cell carcinoma.

Symptoms of Skin Cancer

The most important sign is a change on your skin. Watch for:

  • A new spot or growth, especially one that looks different from your other spots.
  • A mole that changes in size, shape or color. The ABCDEs can help: asymmetry, an uneven border, more than one color, a diameter larger than a pencil eraser, and evolving, or changing.
  • A shiny, pink or pearly bump, sometimes with tiny blood vessels.
  • A red, scaly or crusty patch, or a firm red bump.
  • A sore that does not heal within three weeks, or that heals and comes back.
  • A spot that itches, hurts or bleeds without an injury.

Skin cancer can form anywhere, including the scalp, under the nails, on the palms and soles, and in places the sun rarely reaches. On darker skin it more often appears in places the sun rarely reaches, such as the palms, soles and under the nails.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • A seizure, sudden confusion or a sudden, severe headache.
  • New weakness or numbness in an arm or leg.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding from a skin growth or a surgical site that will not stop with firm pressure.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Redness, warmth, swelling or pus where a spot was removed.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after a skin procedure.
  • A lump in your neck, armpit or groin that is new and growing, if you have had melanoma or squamous cell carcinoma.
  • A new rash, diarrhea or cough while taking a medicine for advanced skin cancer.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Skin Cancer

Most skin cancers are caused by ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun or from tanning beds and sun lamps. UV rays damage the DNA inside skin cells. The body repairs much of that damage, but over years some changes remain and can lead to cancer. Both a lifetime of sun and sunburns, especially blistering burns in childhood, add to the damage. UV rays reach you on cloudy days and through car side windows.

Other causes include a weakened immune system, earlier radiation treatment, long-term exposure to chemicals such as arsenic, and some inherited conditions.

Risk Factors for Skin Cancer

You are more likely to develop skin cancer if you:

  • Have fair skin that burns or freckles easily, or light hair or eyes.
  • Spend a lot of time in the sun for work or play, or have used tanning beds.
  • Have had sunburns, especially as a child.
  • Have many moles, or moles that look unusual.
  • Have had skin cancer before, or have a parent, brother or sister who had melanoma.
  • Are older, or have a weakened immune system, for example after an organ transplant.

People of every skin color can get skin cancer. Having a risk factor does not mean you will get it.

Prevention of Skin Cancer

Most skin cancers can be prevented by limiting UV exposure:

  • Seek shade, especially from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher every day, and reapply every two hours outdoors and after swimming or sweating.
  • Wear a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses and clothing that covers your arms and legs.
  • Skip tanning beds and sun lamps.
  • Check your skin once a month, using a mirror or a partner for your back and scalp.

Diagnosis of Skin Cancer

A dermatologist or your primary care doctor looks over your skin from head to toe, often with a lighted magnifier called a dermatoscope. Photos may be taken to compare over time.

The only way to know if a spot is cancer is a skin biopsy. After numbing the skin, the doctor removes all or part of the spot, and a specialist studies it under a microscope. For melanoma and some squamous cell carcinomas, more tests may show whether the cancer has spread, such as a sentinel lymph node biopsy (lymph node removal) or a CT scan, MRI or PET/CT scan.

Treatment Options for Skin Cancer

Treatment depends on the type, size, location and stage of the cancer. Most early skin cancers are removed in a single office visit.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Excisional surgery cuts out the cancer with a margin of healthy skin.
  • Mohs surgery removes the cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each under a microscope, and saves as much healthy skin as possible on the face and other sensitive areas.
  • Melanoma surgery removes a melanoma with a wider margin and may check nearby lymph nodes.
  • Freezing, scraping and burning, or creams and light treatments, for some early or precancerous spots.
  • Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin after a larger removal.

Medicines and Radiation

For cancers that are advanced or cannot be removed with surgery, options include radiation therapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, chemotherapy and, for some melanomas, tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy. Clinical trials may be an option for some people, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists them.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Skin Cancer

After one skin cancer, your chance of another is higher, so regular skin checks become part of life. Your doctor will tell you how often to come in, often every few months at first. Keep up sun protection every day, check your skin monthly, and bring up any new or changing spot right away, even between visits.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if you notice a new or changing spot, a sore that does not heal, or a lump near a scar. Before a visit, note when you first saw the spot and how it has changed. Ask which type of skin cancer you have, whether it could have spread, which treatment fits and why, how the scar will look, and how often you need skin checks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is skin cancer curable?

Most skin cancers are cured when they are found and treated early. Basal and squamous cell carcinomas rarely spread when treated early, and melanoma found before it spreads also has a very high cure rate.

How often should I have a skin check?

There is no single schedule for everyone. If you have had skin cancer, many moles or a family history of melanoma, your doctor may suggest a professional skin check every year or more often. Everyone can check their own skin once a month.

Can I get skin cancer if I have dark skin?

Yes. It is less common, and it is more often found late. Acral melanoma, which forms on the palms, soles and under the nails, is the type seen most often in people with darker skin.

Does a sun spot mean I have skin cancer?

No. Sun spots are flat, even-colored brown spots from sun exposure and are harmless. A spot that is raised, rough, changing or bleeding should be checked.

Will treatment leave a scar?

Most treatments leave a scar, usually small. Mohs surgery and reconstruction help keep scars as small as possible on the face and other visible areas.

Who Treats It and Where

Skin cancer is treated by dermatologists, Mohs surgeons, surgical oncologists, plastic surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team brings together dermatology, surgical oncology, medical oncology, plastic surgery and radiation oncology, with a tumor board that reviews cases together. It treats every type from precancerous spots to advanced melanoma, offers immunotherapy, targeted therapy and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, and follows people at higher risk. Its head and neck surgeons treat skin cancers of the scalp, face, ears and neck.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists in Carrollwood, Land O' Lakes, North Tampa, St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills offer skin cancer checks, dermoscopy, biopsies and removal, with outpatient Mohs surgery in Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills by referral.
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Cancer

Cancer specialists treat skin cancers that are advanced or have spread beyond the skin.

Learn More About Cancer
Dermatology

Dermatologists check your skin, biopsy spots that look different and treat most early skin cancers.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Treatments
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer (Including Melanoma), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin
  2. American Cancer Society. Skin Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/skin-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Skin Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/skincancer.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Skin Cancer: Screening. 2023.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/skin-cancer-screening

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many start as cancer elsewhere that has spread to the spine. Back pain is the most common sign. Orlando Health teams diagnose spinal tumors and treat them together.

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This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

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Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because back or neck pain has not gone away, because a scan for something else found a spot on your spine, or because you have had cancer before and a doctor wants to check your spine. Most back pain is not caused by a tumor, but pain that keeps getting worse, wakes you at night or comes with numbness or weakness deserves a closer look.

The spine is a column of bones, called vertebrae, that protects the spinal cord, the bundle of nerves that sends messages between your brain and body. A tumor in this space can press on the cord or its nerves, which is what causes most symptoms. Finding and treating a spinal tumor early helps protect your strength, feeling and control of your bladder and bowels.

This page explains the kinds of spinal tumors, the signs to know, how they are found, and the treatments that relieve pressure and control the tumor.

What Is a Spinal Tumor?

A spinal tumor is an abnormal growth of cells in or around the spinal cord or in the bones of the spine. It is one of the brain and spine tumors. Spinal tumors are named by where they start:

  • Metastatic tumors: cancer that started somewhere else, most often the breast, lung, prostate, kidney or thyroid, and spread to the bones of the spine. These are the most common spinal tumors in adults. See bone metastasis.
  • Tumors of the spinal bones: start in the vertebrae. Some are not cancer, such as osteoid osteomas and giant cell tumors. Others are cancer, such as myeloma, the most common cancer that starts in bone, and rare tumors like chordoma and sarcoma.
  • Tumors outside the cord but inside its covering: most are meningiomas or nerve sheath tumors, such as schwannomas, and most are not cancer.
  • Tumors inside the spinal cord: start in the cord itself. Most are ependymomas or astrocytomas, which are types of glioma.

A tumor that is not cancer can still cause trouble because the space around the spinal cord is tight.

Symptoms of Spinal Tumors

Symptoms depend on where the tumor is and how much it presses on the cord or nerves. They often build slowly. Signs can include:

  • Back or neck pain that keeps getting worse, is worse at night or when lying down, and does not ease with rest.
  • Pain that spreads into the arms, legs or around the chest.
  • Numbness, tingling or a pins-and-needles feeling.
  • Weakness in the arms or legs, trouble walking, or more falls than usual.
  • Changes in bladder or bowel control.
  • A spine that curves or a vertebra that breaks with little or no injury.

Back pain is very common and is rarely caused by a tumor. Pain with any of the other signs, or pain in someone who has had cancer, should be checked.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • New weakness or numbness in your legs or arms, or trouble walking that is getting worse quickly.
  • Losing control of your bladder or bowels, or being unable to pass urine.
  • Numbness in your groin, buttocks or inner thighs.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, coughing up blood or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord, which needs treatment within hours to protect strength and feeling. Call rather than driving yourself.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Back or neck pain that is new, getting worse or waking you at night.
  • Pain that your medicine no longer controls.
  • Tingling that is spreading to a new area.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Spinal Tumors

Most spinal tumors that are not metastatic have no known cause. They begin when cells build up changes in their genes that let them grow out of control. Metastatic tumors happen when cancer cells travel from a tumor elsewhere in the body, through the blood, and lodge in the bones of the spine. Some spinal tumors come from inherited conditions that cause tumors to grow along nerves.

Risk Factors for Spinal Tumors

You are more likely to develop a spinal tumor if you:

  • Have or have had cancer, especially breast, lung, prostate, kidney or thyroid cancer, or myeloma.
  • Have an inherited condition such as neurofibromatosis type 1 or 2, or von Hippel-Lindau disease.
  • Had radiation therapy to the spine area for another condition.
  • Have a weakened immune system, which raises the risk of lymphoma in the spine.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get a spinal tumor.

Diagnosis of Spinal Tumors

Your doctor asks about your pain and does a neurological exam, checking strength, feeling, reflexes and balance. Tests that help include:

  • An MRI of the spine, the main test. It shows the spinal cord, nerves and bones in detail and where a tumor is pressing.
  • A CT scan or X-ray, which shows the bones and whether a vertebra is weak or broken.
  • A bone scan or PET-CT scan, which look for cancer in other bones or other parts of the body.
  • A biopsy, often with a needle guided by a CT scan, to learn the tumor's type. Sometimes the tumor is sampled during surgery.
  • Blood tests, such as tests for myeloma.

If you have not had cancer before, your team will look for where a metastatic tumor may have started.

Treatment Options for Spinal Tumors

Your plan depends on the tumor's type and place, whether it is pressing on the cord, how stable the spine is, your other cancer care and what matters to you. A team of surgeons, oncologists and radiation oncologists usually plans it together.

Monitoring

A small tumor that is not cancer and causes no symptoms may be watched with regular MRI scans.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery can remove a tumor, relieve pressure on the spinal cord and nerves, or stabilize a spine weakened by a tumor with rods and screws. Some operations use small incisions. A vertebra that has collapsed from a tumor can be treated with kyphoplasty or vertebroplasty, which inject bone cement through a needle to stabilize the bone and ease pain. Read more about cancer surgery.

Radiation

Radiation therapy shrinks tumors and eases pain, alone or after surgery. Stereotactic body radiation therapy gives high doses to a precise target in a few sessions. Proton therapy may be used for tumors near the spinal cord, such as chordomas.

Medicines

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Spinal Tumors

Physical and occupational therapy help you rebuild strength, balance and the skills of daily life, like walking, dressing and bathing. Cancer rehabilitation can start soon after surgery. Your team may suggest a brace for a while, limits on lifting or twisting, and ways to move safely at home. Learn what is normal for your pain and strength so a change stands out, and keep your follow-up MRI scans.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about any change in pain, strength, feeling or bladder and bowel control. Bring your medicines, your cancer history and your questions: what kind of tumor it is, whether it is pressing on the cord, whether surgery, radiation or both is the better fit, and what recovery will ask of you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is my back pain a tumor?

Almost always not. Back pain is very common. Pain that keeps getting worse, wakes you at night or comes with numbness or weakness should be checked.

Are all spinal tumors cancer?

No. Many tumors that start in or near the spine are not cancer, though they can still press on nerves and need treatment.

Can I walk after spine tumor surgery?

Many people are up and walking within a day or two; recovery depends on how much the tumor affected your strength before treatment.

Does a tumor in my spine mean my cancer has spread?

If it came from another cancer, yes, and that cancer's treatment guides the plan. Many people with spinal metastases live for years with treatment.

Will radiation hurt?

The treatment itself is painless. Some people have tiredness or skin changes, and pain often improves over the following weeks.

Who Treats It and Where

Spinal tumors are cared for by neurosurgeons, spine surgeons, neuro-oncologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and rehabilitation therapists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Brain and Spine Tumor Center brings neuro-oncologists, neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, neuroradiologists and neuropathologists together, with physical, occupational and speech therapists, and the team meets weekly to plan each patient's care. It sees patients at Orlando Health Cancer Institute locations across Central Florida, and offers radiation and proton therapy.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion close to home in the Tampa Bay area for cancers that can spread to the spine, such as breast, lung and prostate cancer.

Spine specialists at Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health also treat spinal tumors in the Tampa Bay area, and its interventional pain management team performs kyphoplasty and vertebroplasty.

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Advanced Rehabilitation

Physical and occupational therapists help people rebuild strength, balance and daily skills after spine tumor treatment.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Cancer

Radiation and medical oncologists treat spinal tumors and the cancers that spread to the spine, including with protons.

Learn More About Cancer
Neuroscience

Neurosurgeons remove spinal tumors, relieve pressure on the spinal cord and stabilize the spine with rods and screws.

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Conditions
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

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Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

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Sarcoma

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Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Treatments
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Adult Central Nervous System Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/brain/patient/adult-brain-treatment-pdq
  2. American Association of Neurological Surgeons. Spinal Tumors.
    https://www.aans.org/patients/conditions-treatments/spinal-tumors/
  3. American Cancer Society. Spinal Cord Compression.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/nervous-system-effects/spinal-cord-compression.html
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Brain Cancer, Gliomas.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most often on skin that gets a lot of sun. Found early, it is very treatable, usually with a short procedure in the office.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe a rough, scaly patch on your scalp never went away, or a sore on your lip or hand healed and then came back. Maybe your dermatologist took a small sample during a skin check and the report came back with a name you had to look up. It helps to know early on that most cases are found on the skin's surface, where they can be seen, removed and cured.

This cancer grows from squamous cells, the thin, flat cells that make up the top layer of your skin. Years of sunlight damage the DNA inside them until some begin to grow out of control. Most squamous cell carcinomas grow slowly and stay in the skin. A small number grow deeper or spread, which is why each one is removed and why regular skin checks continue afterward.

This page explains what squamous cell carcinoma looks like, what causes it, how it is diagnosed and treated, and how to lower your chance of another one.

What Is Squamous Cell Carcinoma?

Squamous cell carcinoma of the skin, also called cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma or SCC, is one of the three main types of skin cancer. The other two are basal cell carcinoma, the most common, and melanoma. More than a million people in the United States are diagnosed with SCC each year.

It most often forms on the face, ears, lips, scalp, neck and the backs of the hands and arms. It can also start in a scar, a burn or a sore that has been open for a long time, and in the genital and anal skin. In people with darker skin, it often appears on areas that get less sun.

Some growths come before SCC. An actinic keratosis is a rough, dry spot caused by sun damage. It is a precancer, and a small share turn into SCC over time. SCC in situ, also called Bowen disease, is SCC that has stayed in the top layer of skin. Treating both early keeps them from growing deeper.

Symptoms of Squamous Cell Carcinoma

SCC can look different from person to person. Watch for:

  • A firm, red or skin-colored bump that grows.
  • A flat, scaly or crusty patch that does not go away.
  • An open sore that does not heal, or heals and comes back.
  • A rough, wart-like growth, sometimes with a dip in the center.
  • A scaly area on the lip that feels like a chapped spot lip balm does not fix.
  • A spot that bleeds easily, itches or feels tender to the touch.

Show a dermatologist any new growth, or any spot that grows, changes or lasts more than a few weeks.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Bleeding from a skin growth or surgical wound that will not stop after 20 minutes of firm pressure.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or immunotherapy, or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Swelling of the face, lips or throat.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A spot that grows quickly over a few weeks.
  • A new lump in your neck, under your arm or in your groin, near a treated area.
  • Numbness, tingling or new pain in the skin around a growth.
  • Redness, warmth, swelling or drainage at a surgery site.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Most SCC comes from ultraviolet (UV) light, from the sun and from tanning beds. UV light damages the DNA in skin cells, and the damage builds up over a lifetime until some cells form a tumor.

Other causes include:

  • A weakened immune system, such as from medicines taken after an organ transplant.
  • Human papillomavirus (HPV), for some SCC of the genital and anal skin and around the nails.
  • Long-lasting wounds, scars and burns.
  • Earlier radiation treatment to the skin.
  • Arsenic and some industrial chemicals.

Risk Factors for Squamous Cell Carcinoma

You are more likely to develop SCC if you:

  • Have fair skin, light hair or light eyes, or skin that burns easily.
  • Have spent many hours in the sun over the years, through work or outdoor hobbies.
  • Have had blistering sunburns or used tanning beds.
  • Are over 50, or are male.
  • Have actinic keratoses or have had skin cancer before.
  • Have a weakened immune system.
  • Smoke, which raises the risk on the lips.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get SCC.

Prevention of Squamous Cell Carcinoma

  • Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher every day, and reapply every two hours outdoors and after swimming or sweating.
  • Use a lip balm with SPF.
  • Seek shade between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., when UV light is strongest.
  • Wear a wide-brimmed hat, sunglasses and tightly woven or sun-protective clothing.
  • Skip tanning beds and sunlamps.
  • Quit smoking.
  • Have actinic keratoses treated, and check your skin once a month.

Diagnosis of Squamous Cell Carcinoma

A dermatologist examines the spot, often with a dermatoscope, a handheld magnifier with a bright light, and checks the rest of your skin.

If a spot looks suspicious, the next step is a skin biopsy. After a numbing shot, the doctor removes all or part of the spot, and a specialist examines it under a microscope. The biopsy confirms whether it is SCC and shows how deep it goes.

For a large or deep tumor, or one that may have reached the lymph nodes, your team may order an ultrasound, a CT scan or an MRI, and sometimes a lymph node biopsy. These results guide the stage and the plan.

Treatment Options for Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Most SCC is cured with an office procedure. The choice depends on the size, depth and location of the tumor, and on your health.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Excisional surgery cuts out the tumor with a margin of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound with stitches.
  • Mohs surgery removes the tumor one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope during the visit. It spares healthy skin and is often chosen for the face, ears, lips, hands and for tumors that came back.
  • Curettage and electrodesiccation scrapes away a small, thin tumor and seals the area with heat.
  • Cryotherapy freezes precancers and some early, thin growths.

When a larger area is removed, the wound can be repaired with skin cancer reconstruction.

Medicines and Therapy

  • Prescription creams and photodynamic therapy, which uses a light-activated medicine, treat actinic keratoses and some SCC in situ.
  • Radiation therapy treats tumors where surgery is hard, or is given after surgery when the risk of return is higher.
  • Immunotherapy helps your immune system fight SCC that has grown deep, spread or cannot be removed. Chemotherapy and targeted therapy are other options for advanced SCC.

For some people, a clinical trial may be an option, and the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page lists studies for this condition.

Your plan is made with your care team and fits your tumor, your skin and your goals.

Living With Squamous Cell Carcinoma

For most people, treatment ends with the procedure and a healed scar. Having one SCC raises your chance of another skin cancer, so your dermatologist will set a schedule of full skin exams, often more frequent in the first few years. Between visits, check your skin monthly, using a mirror or a partner for your back and scalp, and keep up daily sun protection. If you take medicines that weaken your immune system, ask how often your skin should be checked.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about any new spot, a scar that changes or a growth in a treated area that returns. Bring photos of spots you are tracking, your medicine list and your questions: how deep the cancer was, whether more treatment is needed and how often you need skin checks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is squamous cell carcinoma serious?

Most SCC is found early and cured with a simple procedure. A small number grow deep or spread, mostly after going untreated for a long time.

Can squamous cell carcinoma spread?

It can, though most do not. Tumors that are large, deep, on the ear or lip, or in someone with a weakened immune system are more likely to spread, and your team watches these closely.

Will I have a scar?

Yes, and most fade over months. Mohs surgery and careful repair keep scars small.

What is the difference between an actinic keratosis and SCC?

An actinic keratosis is a rough, sun-damaged spot that is a precancer. SCC is cancer. Treating actinic keratoses lowers the chance that one turns into SCC.

Can it come back after treatment?

It can return in the same place or appear somewhere new. Regular skin exams and monthly self-checks find a new spot while it is small.

Who Treats It and Where

SCC is treated by dermatologists and Mohs surgeons, and larger or advanced tumors bring in surgical oncologists, head and neck surgeons, plastic surgeons, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team treats squamous cell carcinoma from early to advanced stages, with dermatology, surgical oncology, plastic surgery, radiation oncology and medical oncology working together and a tumor board reviewing complex cases. The team sees patients in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists who screen for, diagnose and remove skin cancer, with Mohs surgery offered as an outpatient procedure, at offices in Carrollwood, Land O' Lakes, North Tampa, St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills.
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Cancer

Cancer specialists step in when a squamous cell skin cancer is large, deep or comes back.

Learn More About Cancer
Dermatology

Dermatologists diagnose squamous cell carcinoma of the skin and remove it in the office.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Treatments
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Reconstruction
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy

References

  1. American Academy of Dermatology. Squamous cell carcinoma: Overview.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/scc
  2. American Academy of Dermatology. Squamous cell carcinoma: Diagnosis and treatment.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/scc/treatment
  3. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/skin-treatment-pdq
  4. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer Prevention (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/skin-prevention-pdq
  5. MedlinePlus. Squamous cell skin cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000829.htm
  6. Skin Cancer Foundation. Squamous Cell Carcinoma.
    https://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/squamous-cell-carcinoma/

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Stomach Cancer

Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, starts in the lining of the stomach. Its early signs, like indigestion or feeling full fast, are easy to miss, so a lasting change deserves a check. Orlando Health care teams find it, stage it and treat it with medicine and surgery.

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Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because heartburn or an upset stomach kept coming back, because an upper endoscopy found something unexpected, or because a doctor has just told you the word cancer. Each of these brings a lot to absorb. Stomach cancer is less common in the United States than it once was, and treatment for it has improved over the last several decades.

The stomach holds food and starts digesting it before passing it to the small intestine. Stomach cancer usually grows slowly, over many years, from changes in the stomach's inner lining. Many cancers are found once symptoms appear, which is why it helps to know the signs and to have a lasting problem checked. When it is found before it spreads, a combination of medicine and surgery can often cure it.

This page explains what stomach cancer is, the signs to watch for, what raises the risk, how it is found and treated, and what eating and daily life can look like during and after treatment.

What Is Stomach Cancer?

Stomach cancer forms when cells in the stomach's inner lining grow out of control. It can start anywhere in the stomach, including where the stomach meets the esophagus, called the gastroesophageal junction. More than half of people diagnosed are 65 or older, and men get it more often than women.

The main kinds are:

  • Adenocarcinoma: starts in the gland cells of the lining. About 90 to 95 percent of stomach cancers are this kind. Doctors divide it into intestinal and diffuse types, which grow in different ways.
  • Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST): start in special cells in the stomach wall and are treated differently.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors: start in hormone-making cells. See neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Lymphoma of the stomach, which is treated as a lymphoma.

Symptoms of Stomach Cancer

Early stomach cancer often causes no symptoms, or symptoms that feel like everyday indigestion. Signs can include:

  • Heartburn, indigestion or reflux that is new, frequent or does not ease with usual treatment.
  • Feeling full quickly after eating a small amount.
  • Pain or discomfort in the upper belly.
  • Trouble swallowing, especially with cancer near the esophagus.
  • Nausea or vomiting.
  • Weight loss or loss of appetite you cannot explain.
  • Tiredness from a low red blood cell count caused by slow bleeding.

Most of these signs come from conditions far more common than cancer, and having one checked is how you find out.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Vomiting blood or material that looks like coffee grounds, or black, tarry stools.
  • Severe belly pain that comes on suddenly.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Food or liquid that will not go down, or vomiting that keeps you from drinking for a day.
  • Diarrhea, cramping or sweating after meals that keeps you from eating.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Stomach Cancer

Most stomach cancers develop over years as the stomach lining changes. Long-term infection with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a common germ, causes inflammation that can lead to these changes and is a leading cause. Long-lasting reflux plays a part in cancer where the stomach meets the esophagus. Only 1 to 3 percent of stomach cancers come from an inherited gene change, such as the CDH1 change behind hereditary diffuse gastric cancer.

Risk Factors for Stomach Cancer

Some risk factors are part of who you are or your history:

  • Being older than 60.
  • Being male.
  • H. pylori infection.
  • A parent, sibling or child with stomach cancer.
  • Inherited syndromes such as hereditary diffuse gastric cancer or Lynch syndrome.
  • Earlier stomach surgery, or pernicious anemia.
  • Being of Hispanic, Black, Asian or Pacific Islander descent.

Others are linked to daily life:

  • A diet high in salted, smoked or pickled foods and processed meats.
  • Smoking or chewing tobacco.
  • Heavy drinking.
  • Excess weight, which is linked to cancer near the esophagus.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will get stomach cancer.

Prevention of Stomach Cancer

There is no routine screening test for stomach cancer for people at average risk in the United States. You can lower your risk: get tested and treated for H. pylori if your doctor suggests it, do not smoke, limit alcohol, keep a healthy weight, and eat plenty of vegetables, fruit and whole grains while limiting salted, smoked and processed foods. People with an inherited syndrome may be offered regular endoscopy or other care, so genetic counseling helps when several relatives have had stomach cancer.

Diagnosis of Stomach Cancer

An upper endoscopy is the main test. While you are sedated, a doctor passes a thin, flexible tube with a camera through your mouth to look at your esophagus and stomach, and takes a biopsy of anything unusual.

If cancer is found, more tests show its stage:

  • A CT scan of the chest, belly and pelvis.
  • Endoscopic ultrasound, which shows how deep the tumor has grown and checks nearby lymph nodes.
  • A PET-CT scan in some cases.
  • Staging laparoscopy, a short operation through small cuts that checks the belly lining for spread.
  • Molecular profiling of the tumor, for markers such as HER2, MSI and PD-L1 that help choose medicines.

Treatment Options for Stomach Cancer

Your plan depends on the stage, where the tumor is, its features, your health and what matters to you.

Procedures and Surgery

A very early cancer limited to the inner lining can sometimes be removed through an endoscope, with no cuts. For most cancers that have not spread, surgery called a gastrectomy removes part or all of the stomach and the nearby lymph nodes, then connects the remaining stomach or the esophagus to the small intestine. Surgeons use small incisions when they can, some with robotic surgery. Read more about cancer surgery.

When cancer has spread to the belly lining, a few people may be candidates for surgery with HIPEC. See peritoneal carcinomatosis.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy, often given before and after surgery to shrink the cancer and lower the chance of return.
  • Immunotherapy, alone or with chemotherapy, for some cancers.
  • Targeted therapy, such as medicines aimed at HER2, chosen by the tumor's markers.

Radiation

Radiation therapy is used for some cancers near the esophagus and to ease bleeding or pain.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Stomach Cancer

Eating changes the most. After a gastrectomy, small meals five or six times a day work better than three large ones. Some people have dumping syndrome, cramps, sweating or diarrhea after eating sugary foods, which eases with diet changes. People who have the whole stomach removed need vitamin B12 shots for life. A dietitian helps you keep your weight and strength up, and a nurse navigator helps coordinate visits. Follow-up includes visits, scans and sometimes endoscopy for several years. Cancer rehabilitation and support groups help you regain strength.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about weight loss, trouble eating, new pain or side effects. Bring your medicines, your family history and your questions: what stage the cancer is, what each treatment is for, how much of your stomach may be removed, and how you will eat afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I live without my stomach?

Yes. After a total gastrectomy, the esophagus is joined to the small intestine, and people learn to eat smaller meals more often.

Is stomach cancer curable?

Often, when it is found before it spreads. Treatment for advanced stomach cancer can control it and help you feel better.

Does H. pylori mean I will get stomach cancer?

No. Most people with H. pylori never get stomach cancer, and treating the infection lowers the risk.

Will I lose weight during treatment?

Many people do. A dietitian can help with high-calorie foods, supplements and meal timing to keep your strength up.

Should my family be tested?

If several relatives had stomach cancer or someone was diagnosed young, genetic counseling can help decide about testing. Treating H. pylori in close family members is often advised.

Who Treats It and Where

Stomach cancer is cared for by gastroenterologists, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, dietitians and nurse navigators.

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[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Cancer

Oncologists stage stomach cancer and plan chemotherapy before and after surgery, with immunotherapy or targeted medicine.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find stomach cancer with upper endoscopy, take the biopsy and treat H. pylori infection.

Learn More About Digestive Health
General Surgery

Surgeons remove part or all of the stomach and nearby lymph nodes, often through small incisions.

Learn More About General Surgery
Conditions
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis means cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the thin lining of the belly. It most often comes from...

Learn More About Peritoneal Carcinomatosis
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

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Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

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Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Stomach Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/stomach/patient/stomach-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Stomach Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/stomach-cancer.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Stomach Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/stomachcancer.html
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Stomach Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to 40. It is also one of the most treatable cancers: most men are cured, often with surgery alone, and go on to have children and full lives.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Finding a lump or a change in your testicle can be frightening, and it is easy to put off a visit while you hope it goes away. If you are here because you noticed something, the most useful thing you can do is see a doctor soon. Most lumps turn out to be something other than cancer, and an ultrasound can tell quickly.

If you have already been told it is testicular cancer, there is good news to hold onto. Testicular cancer is uncommon, and it responds very well to treatment. Even when it has spread beyond the testicle, most men are still cured.

Treatment usually starts with surgery to remove the affected testicle. Some men need nothing more than regular checkups afterward. Others have chemotherapy, radiation or a second surgery. Men who have one testicle removed can usually still have children and keep a normal sex drive, and there are ways to protect fertility before treatment. This page explains the signs, how testicular cancer is diagnosed and what treatment and life afterward look like.

What Is Testicular Cancer?

The testicles are two oval glands inside the scrotum, the loose pouch of skin below the penis. They make sperm and the hormone testosterone. Testicular cancer forms when cells in a testicle begin to grow out of control.

More than 9 in 10 testicular cancers start in germ cells, the cells that make sperm. They come in two main types:

  • Seminomas tend to grow slowly and respond very well to radiation and chemotherapy.
  • Nonseminomas tend to grow faster and are often a mix of cell types. They also respond well to chemotherapy.

About 1 in 250 men will develop testicular cancer in their lifetime. It usually affects one testicle.

Symptoms of Testicular Cancer

The most common sign is a lump or swelling in a testicle, often painless. Other signs include:

  • A testicle that feels larger, firmer or heavier than before.
  • A dull ache in the lower belly or groin.
  • A sudden collection of fluid in the scrotum.
  • Pain or discomfort in a testicle or the scrotum.
  • Tender or growing breast tissue, caused by hormones some tumors make.
  • Back pain, a cough or shortness of breath, which can happen when the cancer has spread.

Many of these signs have other causes, such as an infection or a fluid sac. Only an exam can tell.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Sudden, severe pain in a testicle or the scrotum. This is often a twisted testicle, which needs surgery within hours.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Coughing up blood.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A new lump, swelling or hardness in a testicle.
  • Pain and swelling in one leg.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at a surgical incision.
  • Vomiting that keeps you from drinking during treatment.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Testicular Cancer

The cause of most testicular cancers is not known. Many are thought to begin before birth, when cells that should become sperm cells develop abnormally and stay inactive until after puberty. Testicular cancer is not caused by an injury to the testicles, by sports or by a vasectomy.

Risk Factors for Testicular Cancer

You are more likely to develop testicular cancer if you:

  • Had an undescended testicle, one that did not move down into the scrotum by birth or infancy, even if it was later corrected.
  • Are between 20 and 40. It is the most common cancer in young men, though it can happen at any age.
  • Have a father or brother who had testicular cancer.
  • Had testicular cancer before. Some men develop it in the other testicle.
  • Are white. White men are several times more likely to develop it than Black or Asian American men.
  • Have HIV, which slightly raises the risk.

Lifestyle choices, such as diet, smoking or exercise, are not linked to testicular cancer. Many men who develop it have no known risk factor.

Diagnosis of Testicular Cancer

Your doctor examines your testicles and belly and asks about your symptoms. From there:

  • Scrotal ultrasound. A painless test using sound waves, and usually the first one done. It shows whether a lump is solid, which raises concern for cancer, or filled with fluid, which usually does not.
  • Blood tests. A tumor marker test measures proteins that some testicular tumors make, called AFP, beta-hCG and LDH. They help diagnose and stage the cancer and track how treatment is working.
  • Surgery to remove the testicle. A needle biopsy through the scrotum is avoided, because it could spread the cancer. If the ultrasound and blood tests point to cancer, the testicle is removed, and a pathologist confirms the diagnosis and the type.
  • Staging scans. A CT scan of the belly, pelvis and chest shows whether the cancer has reached the lymph nodes or other organs. An MRI or PET-CT scan is sometimes used.

Treatment Options for Testicular Cancer

Procedures and Surgery

The first treatment for nearly every testicular cancer is a radical inguinal orchiectomy, surgery through a small cut in the groin that removes the affected testicle. Recovery takes about a week or two. You can ask about a testicular implant, which gives the scrotum its usual look. If the cancer has spread to lymph nodes in the back of the belly, a surgeon may remove them in an operation called a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection.

Watching Closely After Surgery

For many early cancers, the next step is surveillance: regular exams, blood tests and scans, with treatment only if the cancer comes back. Most men on surveillance never need more treatment, and a return found early is still very treatable.

Medicines and Radiation

Chemotherapy is very effective for testicular cancer, even when it has spread. It is given in cycles over several weeks, often with a combination of medicines. Radiation therapy is used for some seminomas. For cancer that returns after treatment, high-dose chemotherapy with a bone marrow transplant, using your own stem cells, is sometimes an option.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team, and depends on the type and stage of your cancer and your tumor marker levels. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page.

Living With Testicular Cancer

Fertility. Removing one testicle usually does not affect your ability to have children, but chemotherapy and radiation can lower sperm counts for a time or for good. If you may want children, ask about banking sperm before any treatment starts, including surgery.

Hormones and sex. The remaining testicle usually makes enough testosterone. If both are removed, or levels are low, testosterone replacement can restore energy and sex drive.

Follow-up. Expect regular checkups, blood tests and scans for several years, since most returns are found this way. Keep checking your remaining testicle each month.

Long-term health. Some chemotherapy can affect hearing, nerves, the kidneys or heart health years later, so tell any doctor you see about your treatment. Talking with other survivors or a counselor can help with worries about body image and relationships.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Call if you notice any change in your remaining testicle, new back or belly pain, a cough that will not go away, or ringing in your ears or numbness in your hands during chemotherapy. Before treatment, bring your questions: your cancer type and stage, whether surveillance is an option, how treatment could affect fertility, and what your follow-up schedule will be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I still have children after testicular cancer?

Most men can. One testicle usually makes enough sperm. Because chemotherapy and radiation can affect fertility, ask about sperm banking before treatment starts.

Will I need chemotherapy?

Not always. Many men with early cancer need only surgery and close follow-up. Chemotherapy is used when the cancer has spread, or to lower the chance of a return.

How do I check my testicles?

Once a month, after a warm shower, roll each testicle gently between your thumb and fingers. Learn how it normally feels, and see a doctor about any lump, swelling or change.

Why is the testicle removed instead of biopsied?

A needle biopsy through the scrotum could spread cancer cells. Removing the testicle through the groin both treats the cancer and gives the pathologist the tissue needed to confirm it.

Can testicular cancer come back?

It can, most often within the first two years, which is why follow-up visits are frequent at first. A return found early is usually still curable.

Who Treats It and Where

Testicular cancer is treated by urologists, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists, often together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Urologic Cancer Center treats testicular cancer with surgery, including minimally invasive surgery, along with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Its urologists, surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists work from a single treatment plan at Orlando Health Cancer Institute locations across Central Florida.
  • Orlando Health Medical Group Urology. Urologists who evaluate a lump or swelling in a testicle.
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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Testicular Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/testicular/patient/testicular-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Testicular Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/testicular-cancer.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Key Statistics for Testicular Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/testicular-cancer/about/key-statistics.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  5. MedlinePlus. Testicular Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/testicularcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall and the lining around the lungs. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists and lung and digestive specialists care for them together.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Thoracic is the medical word for the chest. You may have seen it on a referral, a scan report or the name of a clinic, and wondered what it covers and whether it applies to you. It is a way of grouping the cancers that start inside the chest, because the same teams of specialists diagnose and treat them.

The best known thoracic cancer is lung cancer, which is also the most common. The group also includes cancer of the esophagus, the tube that moves food from the throat to the stomach, and rarer tumors of the thymus gland, the chest wall and the thin lining around the lungs. Some conditions in the chest are not cancer at all but are checked by the same team, such as most lung nodules and Barrett's esophagus, which can lead to cancer.

This page lists the conditions in the family and how doctors find out which one a person has. Each condition has its own page with its symptoms, causes and treatment.

What Are Thoracic Cancers?

The chest holds the lungs and airways, the esophagus, the heart and large blood vessels, and the thymus gland, all protected by the ribs and the chest wall. A thin lining called the pleura wraps each lung. The space in the middle of the chest, between the lungs, is called the mediastinum.

A thoracic cancer is a cancer that starts in one of these places. Cancers of the heart itself are very rare and are treated by heart specialists, so they are not part of this group.

They share some risk factors. Tobacco smoke raises the risk of both lung and esophageal cancer. Radon and asbestos raise the risk of lung cancer, and asbestos is the main cause of mesothelioma. Long-term acid reflux raises the risk of one kind of esophageal cancer.

They often cause few symptoms early. Many are found on a scan done for another reason, on a lung cancer screening scan, or during a test for heartburn or trouble swallowing. When symptoms do come, they include a lasting cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, hoarseness, trouble swallowing and losing weight without trying.

They are cared for by the same specialists. A thoracic team brings together thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pulmonologists, gastroenterologists, radiologists and pathologists. They review each person's results together and plan treatment as a group.

Conditions in This Family

Cancers of the lung

  • Lung cancer, including non-small cell and small cell lung cancer. The most common thoracic cancer.
  • Lung nodules, small spots in the lung. Most are not cancer, and a thoracic team decides which need a closer look.

Cancers of the esophagus

  • Esophageal cancer, cancer of the tube that moves food to the stomach.
  • Barrett's esophagus, a change in the lining of the esophagus from long-term reflux that can lead to cancer and is watched with regular checks.

Tumors in the middle of the chest

  • Thymoma and thymic carcinoma, tumors of the thymus gland behind the breastbone, along with other growths in the mediastinum such as cysts and some lymphomas. Many are removed with mediastinal surgery.

Tumors of the lining and the chest wall

  • Pleural mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lining around the lungs, most often linked to asbestos.
  • Chest wall tumors, which can be benign or cancer, in the ribs, muscle or soft tissue of the chest.

Cancer that started elsewhere and spread to the lungs is named for where it started and is treated by that cancer's team.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

The type is found with imaging, a look inside, and a tissue sample.

Imaging. A chest X-ray or a CT scan is usually the first test. A PET-CT scan shows whether a growth is unusually active and whether cancer has spread, and an MRI gives more detail in some areas. For people at higher risk, yearly lung cancer screening with a low-dose CT scan finds lung cancer early.

A look inside. An upper endoscopy passes a thin camera through the mouth into the esophagus and stomach. A bronchoscopy does the same for the airways, and navigational bronchoscopy guides the scope to small spots deep in the lung. A mediastinoscopy reaches the lymph nodes in the middle of the chest through a small cut above the breastbone.

A tissue sample. A biopsy taken during one of these tests, or with a needle guided by CT, confirms whether a growth is cancer and what kind. Molecular profiling of the sample can show gene changes that guide treatment.

Treatment depends on the type and the stage. Thoracic cancers are treated with surgery, often through small incisions with robotic surgery or as esophageal surgery, with radiation therapy, and with medicines such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapy. Each condition's page says which apply. Clinical trials may be an option; the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page shows trials for these cancers.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to anyone with a thoracic cancer or being checked for one. Each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Coughing up blood or vomiting blood.
  • Food stuck in your throat so that you cannot swallow your own saliva.
  • Sudden swelling of the face, neck or arms.
  • New weakness or numbness in the legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A cough that is new or getting worse.
  • Trouble swallowing that is getting worse, or food that keeps sticking.
  • Hoarseness that lasts longer than two weeks.
  • Losing weight you cannot explain, or not being able to eat or drink enough.
  • Heartburn that does not ease with your usual medicine.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

If you have a finding but no diagnosis yet, keep copies of your scan reports together and write down what the doctor said. Ask which test comes next, when you will hear the results and who will call you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does thoracic mean?

Thoracic means having to do with the chest. A thoracic surgeon operates on the lungs, esophagus and other organs in the chest, apart from the heart.

Why was I sent to a thoracic team for a lung spot?

Thoracic teams check lung nodules and other chest findings, most of which turn out not to be cancer. Seeing them early means the right next step is chosen quickly.

Is esophageal cancer treated by a digestive team or a chest team?

Often both. The esophagus runs through the chest to the stomach, so thoracic surgeons, gastroenterologists and oncologists may all be part of your care.

Do thoracic cancers always need surgery?

No. Surgery is common for early cancers, and many people also have radiation, medicines or both. Some are treated without surgery at all.

Are thoracic cancers linked to smoking?

Lung and esophageal cancers are, along with some others. People who never smoked can get them too. Quitting at any point lowers your risk and helps treatment work.

Who Treats It and Where

Thoracic cancers are treated by thoracic surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pulmonologists and gastroenterologists who plan care together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center treats lung and esophageal cancers, lung nodules and tumors of the mediastinum and chest wall, with robotic surgery, robotic bronchoscopy, advanced radiation and proton therapy, nutrition support and integrative medicine. A thoracic physician also sees patients at its St. Petersburg location.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Specialists in cancers of the stomach and digestive tract, including cancer where the stomach meets the esophagus.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for lung cancer, at offices in the Tampa Bay area.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
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000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
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Thoracic surgeons and oncologists treat cancers of the lung, esophagus, thymus, chest wall and lung lining together.

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Gastroenterologists use endoscopy to find and sample esophageal cancer and watch Barrett's esophagus.

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Pulmonologists find and sample tumors in the airways and the middle of the chest with a bronchoscope.

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Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

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Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

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Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

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Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

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Mediastinal Surgery

Mediastinal surgery reaches the space in the middle of your chest, between the lungs, to take a tissue sample or remove a...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history....

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Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Lung Cancer, Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung
  2. National Cancer Institute. Esophageal Cancer, Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/esophageal
  3. National Cancer Institute. Thymoma and Thymic Carcinoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/thymoma/patient/thymoma-treatment-pdq
  4. American Cancer Society. Malignant Mesothelioma.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/malignant-mesothelioma.html
  5. MedlinePlus. Lung Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lungcancer.html

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or on a scan for something else. Most thyroid cancers grow slowly and are very treatable, and surgery is the main treatment, sometimes followed by radioactive iodine.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because a doctor felt a lump in your neck, an ultrasound found a nodule, or a biopsy came back showing cancer. Some people learn the news after an operation for what was expected to be a harmless growth. However it arrived, a cancer diagnosis is a lot to take in, and it is natural to want answers quickly.

The most common thyroid cancers grow slowly, and most people treated for them go on to live full lives. Treatment usually starts with surgery to remove part or all of the thyroid gland. Some people then have radioactive iodine, and many take a daily thyroid hormone pill afterward. A few rarer types grow faster and need a different plan, which is why knowing your exact type matters so much.

This page explains the types of thyroid cancer, the signs to watch for, how it is found, the treatments your care team may suggest and what life looks like after treatment.

What Is Thyroid Cancer?

The thyroid is a small gland in the front of the neck, just below the voice box. It makes hormones that set the pace of your metabolism, your heart rate and your body temperature. Thyroid cancer begins when cells in the gland grow out of control and form a tumor.

There are four main types:

  • Papillary thyroid cancer. The most common type, found in most people with thyroid cancer. It grows slowly and responds very well to treatment, even when it reaches lymph nodes in the neck.
  • Follicular thyroid cancer. Less common. It also grows slowly and is usually curable. Papillary and follicular cancers together are called differentiated thyroid cancers.
  • Medullary thyroid cancer. A rare type that starts in different cells of the gland. About one in four cases is linked to an inherited condition called multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN2). Found early, it is often cured.
  • Anaplastic thyroid cancer. Rare and fast-growing. It is found most often in people over 60 and needs prompt care.

About three in four people diagnosed are women, and many are between 20 and 55. The thyroid is part of the endocrine system and lies in the region head and neck specialists treat, so it belongs to both the endocrine cancer and head and neck cancers families.

Symptoms of Thyroid Cancer

Many thyroid cancers cause no symptoms and are found during a routine exam or on a scan done for another reason. When there are signs, they include:

  • A lump or swelling in the front of the neck that you can feel or see.
  • Swollen lymph nodes in the neck.
  • A hoarse voice or a change in your voice that lasts.
  • Trouble swallowing, or a feeling that something is caught in your throat.

Most neck lumps are not cancer, and these signs often have other causes. Have a lump that lasts more than a few weeks checked.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Trouble breathing, or noisy, high-pitched breathing.
  • Neck swelling after surgery that makes it hard to breathe or swallow.
  • Muscle cramps or spasms that do not stop, or a seizure, after neck surgery.
  • Chest pain.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Tingling or numbness around your mouth or in your fingertips after surgery.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after surgery.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at your incision.
  • A neck lump that is growing quickly.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts when changes in the DNA of a thyroid cell let it grow and divide without stopping. For most people, what caused those changes is never known. Some changes are inherited, as in families with medullary thyroid cancer, and radiation to the neck in childhood is the clearest known outside cause.

Risk Factors for Thyroid Cancer

Things that raise the chance of thyroid cancer include:

  • Being female.
  • Radiation to the head or neck, especially as a child, from earlier cancer treatment or from nuclear fallout.
  • A family history of thyroid cancer, or an inherited condition such as MEN2, familial adenomatous polyposis or Cowden syndrome.
  • A diet very low in iodine, uncommon in the United States, where table salt has added iodine.

Having a risk factor does not mean you will develop thyroid cancer.

Prevention of Thyroid Cancer

Most thyroid cancer cannot be prevented, because most people have no risk factor they can change. Two steps help the people they apply to:

  • Testing in families with medullary thyroid cancer. A blood test for a change in the RET gene finds relatives who have it. Doctors often advise removing the thyroid early in carriers, before cancer can form.
  • Limiting radiation to the neck, especially in children, by having imaging only when it is needed.

Diagnosis of Thyroid Cancer

Diagnosis begins with a neck exam and questions about your family's health.

  • Blood tests check thyroid hormone levels. Most people with thyroid cancer have normal levels. A calcitonin test looks for medullary thyroid cancer.
  • Ultrasound of the neck shows the size and features of a nodule and whether lymph nodes look enlarged. It is the main imaging test for the thyroid.
  • Fine-needle aspiration biopsy. A thin needle, guided by ultrasound, takes cells from the nodule for a pathologist to study. It takes a few minutes in the office.
  • Molecular profiling of the biopsy sample can help when the result is unclear.
  • Other imaging, such as a CT scan, MRI or PET/CT scan, shows whether cancer has spread.
  • Genetic counseling is offered to everyone with medullary thyroid cancer and to people with a strong family history.

Treatment Options for Thyroid Cancer

Treatment depends on the type of cancer, its size and whether it has spread.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery is the main treatment for most thyroid cancers. A lobectomy removes one half of the gland, and the remaining half usually keeps making enough hormone. A total thyroidectomy removes the whole gland. Lymph nodes in the neck may come out too. Most operations take one to three hours, and many people go home the same day or the next morning. Learn more about cancer surgery.

For a very small papillary cancer, some people choose active surveillance: regular ultrasounds in place of surgery right away.

Medicines

  • Thyroid hormone pills replace the hormone your thyroid made, and at the right dose they help keep some cancers from returning.
  • Radioactive iodine is a pill or liquid taken after surgery for some differentiated cancers. Thyroid cells absorb the iodine, which destroys any remaining thyroid tissue or cancer cells.
  • Targeted therapy and immunotherapy treat advanced cancers, including medullary and anaplastic types and cancers that no longer respond to radioactive iodine.
  • Chemotherapy is used for some anaplastic cancers.

Radiation

External beam radiation therapy is used for cancers that cannot be fully removed or that have spread to bone or other areas.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Thyroid Cancer

If your whole thyroid was removed, you take a thyroid hormone pill each morning for life, and blood tests guide the dose. A blood test for thyroglobulin, a protein only thyroid tissue makes, and neck ultrasounds help find any return early, sometimes years later. Integrative medicine, support groups and counseling help you and your family cope.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if you feel a new lump in your neck, your voice changes, or you feel shaky, tired or cold, which can mean your hormone dose needs adjusting. Bring a list of your medicines and supplements, especially biotin, which can change thyroid blood test results, and your questions: what type and stage you have, whether you need radioactive iodine, and how often you will be checked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is thyroid cancer curable?

Most thyroid cancers are. Papillary and follicular types are usually cured with treatment, and medullary cancer found early has strong cure rates.

Will I need to take a pill for the rest of my life?

If your whole thyroid was removed, yes. A daily thyroid hormone pill replaces what the gland made. After a lobectomy, many people need no pill.

What is radioactive iodine like?

You swallow a pill or liquid, then keep your distance from others for a few days while it leaves your body. A low-iodine diet for a week or two beforehand is common.

Will surgery change my voice?

The nerves that control your voice lie close to the thyroid, and surgeons work to protect them. A hoarse or tired voice for a few weeks is common, and lasting changes are uncommon.

Should my family be tested?

If you have medullary thyroid cancer, your relatives may be offered a blood test for the RET gene. For other types, tell your relatives about your diagnosis so their doctors know.

Who Treats It and Where

Thyroid cancer is treated by surgeons, endocrinologists, pathologists, radiologists, nuclear medicine specialists and oncologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Endocrine Cancer Center treats every type of thyroid cancer with fellowship-trained endocrinologists, surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses, and it sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida. Care includes hormone tests, imaging, biopsy, genetic testing, minimally invasive surgery, radioactive iodine, radiation and immunotherapy. The institute's Head and Neck Cancer Center also treats thyroid cancer, and its St. Petersburg location treats thyroid cancer in adults and children.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health. Its endocrinologists evaluate and treat thyroid conditions, and its head and neck surgeons perform thyroid surgery.
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[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Cancer

Cancer teams remove thyroid tumors, give radioactive iodine and treat advanced types with targeted therapy.

Learn More About Cancer
ENT / Otolaryngology

Head and neck surgeons remove the thyroid and nearby lymph nodes while protecting the nerves that control the voice.

Learn More About ENT / Otolaryngology
Endocrinology

Endocrinologists set the daily thyroid hormone dose after surgery and track thyroglobulin to watch for a return.

Learn More About Endocrinology
Conditions
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

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Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

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Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very...

Learn More About Parathyroid Cancer
Thyroid Nodules

A thyroid nodule is a lump in the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. Nodules are very common, and most are harmless. An...

Learn More About Thyroid Nodules
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Thyroid Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/thyroid/patient/thyroid-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Thyroid Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/thyroid-cancer.html
  3. American Thyroid Association. Thyroid Cancer (Papillary and Follicular).
    https://www.thyroid.org/thyroid-cancer/
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Thyroid Cancer: Screening. 2017.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/thyroid-cancer-screening
  5. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Thyroid Nodules

A thyroid nodule is a lump in the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. Nodules are very common, and most are harmless. An ultrasound and sometimes a needle biopsy tell which few need treatment. Many only need watching, and those that cause symptoms can be shrunk or removed.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may have felt a lump when you swallowed, a doctor may have noticed one during a checkup, or a scan for something else may have shown a spot on your thyroid. Hearing the word lump near the word thyroid can be frightening, and many people go straight to wondering about cancer.

The reassuring part: thyroid nodules are among the most common findings in medicine. Many adults have at least one by middle age, and most never know. More than nine in ten nodules are benign, which means they are not cancer. Most cause no symptoms and need nothing more than a check from time to time.

The steps that follow are designed to find the small number of nodules that need attention. A blood test shows how your thyroid is working, an ultrasound shows what the nodule looks like, and a needle biopsy answers the question when the ultrasound cannot.

This page explains what nodules are, the signs to watch for, how they are checked and the treatments available when one needs it.

What Are Thyroid Nodules?

The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in the front of the neck, below the voice box. It makes hormones that set your metabolism, heart rate and body temperature. A nodule is a growth of thyroid cells that forms a lump inside the gland. You can have one nodule or several.

Nodules come in a few kinds:

  • Solid nodules, made of thyroid tissue. Most are benign growths called adenomas.
  • Cystic nodules, filled with fluid. Most are benign.
  • Mixed nodules, partly solid and partly fluid.
  • Hot nodules, which make extra thyroid hormone on their own and can cause an overactive thyroid. These are almost never cancer.
  • A multinodular goiter, an enlarged thyroid with many nodules.

A small share of nodules are thyroid cancer, most often a slow-growing type that responds well to treatment. The thyroid is one of the glands covered on the endocrine cancer page.

Symptoms of Thyroid Nodules

Most nodules cause no symptoms. When they do, signs include:

  • A lump in the front of the neck that you can see or feel, often when you swallow.
  • A feeling of pressure or of something caught in your throat.
  • Trouble swallowing, when a large nodule or goiter presses on the food pipe.
  • A hoarse voice that lasts.
  • Signs of an overactive thyroid from a hot nodule: weight loss without trying, a fast or fluttering heartbeat, shakiness, sweating, feeling hot and nervousness.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Trouble breathing, or noisy, high-pitched breathing.
  • Neck swelling after a biopsy, ablation or surgery that makes it hard to breathe or swallow.
  • A racing heartbeat with chest pain, sudden confusion or fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • A lump that grows quickly over days or weeks.
  • A new hoarse voice, or one that has not improved since a procedure.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after a biopsy, ablation or surgery.
  • Tingling around your mouth or in your fingertips after surgery.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Thyroid Nodules

Most nodules have no clear cause. Thyroid cells sometimes grow more than they should as part of aging. Other causes include a lack of iodine in the diet, which is uncommon in the United States, inflammation of the thyroid such as Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and fluid that collects in the gland. A few nodules are cancer.

Risk Factors for Thyroid Nodules

You are more likely to have thyroid nodules if you:

  • Are a woman.
  • Are older, since nodules become more common with age.
  • Had radiation to the head or neck, especially as a child.
  • Have a family history of thyroid nodules or thyroid cancer.
  • Have Hashimoto's thyroiditis or a diet low in iodine.

Radiation in childhood and a family history of thyroid cancer also raise the chance that a nodule is cancer, so tell your doctor about either.

Diagnosis of Thyroid Nodules

Your doctor feels your neck, asks about symptoms and asks about radiation and family history.

  • A blood test for thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) shows whether your thyroid is working normally. A low TSH can point to a hot nodule.
  • Thyroid ultrasound is the main test. It shows the nodule's size, whether it is solid or fluid-filled, and features that help predict risk. It uses sound waves and no radiation.
  • A thyroid scan uses a small amount of a tracer to show whether a nodule is hot. It is used when the TSH is low.
  • Fine-needle aspiration biopsy. A thin needle, guided by ultrasound, takes cells from the nodule. It takes a few minutes in the office, and most people go straight back to their day.
  • Molecular profiling of the biopsy cells can help when the result is unclear, and may spare some people an operation.

Biopsy results fall into groups: benign, cancer, suspicious, or uncertain. A benign result usually means follow-up ultrasounds. An uncertain result may lead to a repeat biopsy, molecular testing or surgery to remove half the gland.

Treatment Options for Thyroid Nodules

Most benign nodules need no treatment. When one does, the choice depends on its size, its symptoms and whether it makes hormone.

Monitoring

A benign nodule that causes no trouble is checked with an ultrasound from time to time, often at first after one to two years. If it stays the same, checks can become less frequent.

Procedures and Surgery

  • Thyroid radiofrequency ablation (RFA). For a benign nodule that causes pressure, trouble swallowing, a visible lump or an overactive thyroid, a needle guided by ultrasound is placed through the front of the neck, and heat from radio waves shrinks the nodule. It is an outpatient procedure under local anesthesia, it takes about an hour or less, and you go home the same day. The nodule shrinks over the following months, and it can be treated again if it regrows. Learn more about tumor ablation.
  • Ethanol ablation. For a fluid-filled nodule that keeps refilling, the fluid is drained and a small amount of alcohol is injected to keep it from coming back.
  • Surgery. A lobectomy removes the half of the gland that holds the nodule, and a total thyroidectomy removes the whole gland. Surgery is used for nodules that are cancer or suspicious, nodules that could not be fully evaluated, and large nodules or goiters that press on the airway or food pipe.

Medicines

Radioactive iodine, a pill or liquid, treats a hot nodule that makes too much hormone. Anti-thyroid medicines can slow an overactive thyroid while a longer-term plan is made.

Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Thyroid Nodules

If you are watching a benign nodule, keep your follow-up ultrasounds. Learn how your neck normally looks and feels so that a change stands out. After a lobectomy, the remaining half of the gland usually makes enough hormone; after a total thyroidectomy, you take a thyroid hormone pill each day. After RFA, most people return to usual activities within a day or two.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team if a nodule seems larger, you find a new lump, swallowing becomes harder, or you notice signs of an overactive thyroid. Bring your past ultrasound and biopsy reports from any other practice, a list of your medicines and supplements, and your questions: what the ultrasound showed, whether a biopsy is needed and how often the nodule should be checked.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a thyroid nodule mean I have cancer?

Rarely. More than nine in ten nodules are benign. An ultrasound, and sometimes a biopsy, tells your doctor which ones need a closer look.

Does the biopsy hurt?

Most people feel pressure and brief discomfort. A numbing medicine may be used, and you can usually go back to your day right after.

My biopsy result was uncertain. What happens next?

Your doctor may repeat the biopsy, send the cells for molecular testing, or suggest removing half the thyroid to get a clear answer.

Can a nodule go away on its own?

Fluid-filled nodules sometimes shrink. Solid nodules usually stay the same or grow slowly, which is why they are rechecked.

Will I need thyroid hormone pills after treatment?

Only if your whole thyroid is removed, or if the remaining tissue cannot make enough hormone. RFA treats only the nodule, so the rest of the gland usually keeps working.

Who Treats It and Where

Thyroid nodules are evaluated and treated by endocrinologists, radiologists, pathologists and endocrine and head and neck surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Endocrine Cancer Center evaluates thyroid nodules with lab tests, ultrasound, biopsy and genetic testing, and treats them with thyroid radiofrequency ablation and minimally invasive surgery. Its team includes endocrinologists, endocrine surgeons, oncologists, radiologists and specialized nurses, and it sees patients at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health. Its endocrinologists evaluate and treat thyroid nodules, and its head and neck surgeons perform thyroid surgery.
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Cancer

Endocrine cancer teams shrink benign nodules with radiofrequency ablation and treat the few that prove to be cancer.

Learn More About Cancer
Endocrinology

Endocrinologists check thyroid hormone levels, order the ultrasound and decide which nodules need a needle biopsy.

Learn More About Endocrinology
Radiology

Radiologists image the nodule by ultrasound and guide the thin needle used for a biopsy or ablation.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or...

Learn More About Thyroid Cancer
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers
Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very...

Learn More About Parathyroid Cancer
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation

References

  1. American Thyroid Association. Thyroid Nodules.
    https://www.thyroid.org/thyroid-nodules/
  2. MedlinePlus. Thyroid Nodules.
    https://medlineplus.gov/thyroidnodules.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Thyroid Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/thyroid/patient/thyroid-treatment-pdq

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male reproductive organs: the prostate, testicles and penis. Each type has its own signs, tests and treatments, and urologists and oncologists treat all of them.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because you saw blood in your urine, a scan found a spot on a kidney, a PSA test came back high, or you felt a lump. You may be waiting on a result or have just heard a diagnosis. Either way, it helps to know where your question fits.

Urologic cancer is the name for any cancer of the organs that make, store and pass urine, along with the male reproductive organs. Women can develop cancers of the kidney, bladder, ureter and urethra; men can develop any of them. These cancers behave very differently from one another, and each has its own page in this library.

This page shows you the family, explains how doctors find out which type a person has and lists the warning signs that need care right away. Many urologic cancers are found early, sometimes by accident on a scan done for another reason, and many can be treated with surgery through small incisions, focused radiation or medicines that preserve how the body works.

What Are Urologic Cancers?

The urinary tract starts with the two kidneys, which filter the blood and make urine. Two thin tubes, the ureters, carry urine to the bladder, where it is stored until it leaves the body through the urethra. In men, the prostate wraps around the urethra below the bladder, and the testicles and penis make up the rest of the reproductive organs. A cancer in any of these is a urologic cancer.

They are among the most common cancers. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men after skin cancer. Bladder and kidney cancer are each among the ten most common cancers in the United States. Testicular, penile, ureter and urethral cancers are much less common.

Smoking is the strongest preventable risk. It raises the risk of bladder, kidney and ureter cancer. Being overweight and having high blood pressure raise the risk of kidney cancer.

Some run in families. Inherited conditions such as Lynch syndrome and von Hippel-Lindau syndrome raise the risk of certain kidney, ureter and bladder cancers, and inherited BRCA gene changes raise the risk of prostate cancer. Genetic counseling can tell you whether you have one.

Protecting how your body works is part of the plan. Treatment aims to remove the cancer while keeping urinary, sexual and kidney function where possible.

Conditions in This Family

  • Prostate cancer. Starts in the prostate gland. Most grow slowly, and many are found through a PSA blood test before they cause symptoms.
  • Bladder cancer. Usually starts in the cells lining the inside of the bladder. The most common first sign is blood in the urine, often painless. Many are found before they grow into the bladder's muscle wall.
  • Kidney cancer. Most are renal cell carcinomas, which start in the lining of the small tubes inside the kidney. Many are found by chance on a scan done for another reason. Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, an inherited condition, raises the risk.
  • Testicular cancer. Starts in a testicle, most often in men 20 to 40, usually as a painless lump. It is one of the most curable cancers.
  • Penile cancer. A rare cancer of the skin or tissue of the penis, often starting as a sore, a lump or a change in skin color. HPV infection is linked to many cases.
  • Upper tract urothelial cancer. Starts in the lining of the ureters or the part of the kidney that collects urine. It is closely related to bladder cancer.
  • Urethral cancer. A rare cancer of the urethra in men or women.

Finding Out Which Type You Have

The steps usually follow a symptom, a screening result or a finding on a scan done for something else.

Urine tests. A urinalysis looks for blood you cannot see. Urine cytology looks for cancer cells shed from the bladder or ureters.

Looking inside. In a cystoscopy, a urologist passes a thin, lighted scope through the urethra to look inside the bladder. A ureteroscopy goes further, into the ureters and kidney. Both can take tissue samples.

Imaging. A CT scan, often a CT urogram, shows the kidneys, ureters and bladder. An ultrasound is the first test for a lump in a testicle. An MRI shows the prostate in detail and helps decide whether a biopsy is needed, and a PET-CT scan can show whether a cancer has spread.

Blood tests. The PSA test checks for prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the one cancer in this family with a routine screening test, prostate cancer screening, and whether to have it is a choice you make with your doctor. A tumor marker test helps diagnose testicular cancer and track treatment.

A biopsy. A pathologist studies tissue under a microscope to name the cancer and its grade. For a suspected testicular cancer, the whole testicle is removed through the groin, since a needle biopsy through the scrotum could spread the cancer.

Treatment depends on the type. Choices include surgery, often robotic surgery through small incisions; procedures that freeze or heat a small kidney or prostate tumor; radiation therapy, including proton therapy; medicines placed directly into the bladder; and chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and hormone therapy. When the bladder is removed, a surgeon builds a new way for urine to leave the body, such as a urostomy. Each member's page explains its options. Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on each condition's page.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

See your doctor if you notice any of these, even if they come and go:

  • Blood in your urine, even once, even without pain.
  • Needing to urinate more often or urgently, burning when you urinate, or a weak stream.
  • Pain in your side, lower back or belly that does not go away.
  • A lump or swelling in a testicle.
  • A sore, lump or skin change on the penis that does not heal within four weeks.
  • Weight loss or tiredness you cannot explain.

When to Get Help Now

These lists apply to every cancer in this family; each condition's page adds its own signs.

Call 911 or go to the emergency department for:

  • Being unable to pass any urine at all, with a full, painful bladder.
  • Sudden, severe pain in a testicle.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy.
  • A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or shaking chills, in the days after a prostate biopsy.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • Bleeding that will not stop.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Blood clots in your urine, or blood that is heavier than before.
  • Burning or light bleeding after a cystoscopy that lasts more than two days.
  • Pain and swelling in one leg.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at a surgical incision, or a urostomy that stops draining.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a urologist do?

A urologist is a surgeon who treats the urinary tract and the male reproductive organs. Urologists perform cystoscopies, biopsies and most surgery for these cancers, and they work with medical and radiation oncologists on treatment with medicines and radiation.

Does blood in my urine mean I have cancer?

Usually it does not. Infections, kidney stones and an enlarged prostate cause blood in the urine far more often. Blood in the urine still always needs a checkup, because it is the most common first sign of bladder and kidney cancer.

Can I keep my bladder or kidney?

Often. Many early bladder cancers are removed through a scope, and many small kidney tumors are treated by removing only the tumor. Ask your care team which options fit your cancer.

Will treatment affect my sex life?

Some treatments can, especially surgery or radiation for prostate, bladder and penile cancer. Ask about the chances before treatment. Medicines, devices and reconstructive surgery can help restore sexual and urinary function.

Should I quit smoking after a diagnosis?

Yes. Quitting at any point lowers the chance of a bladder cancer coming back and helps you heal from surgery and other treatment. Your care team can connect you with help to quit.

Who Treats It and Where

Urologic cancers are treated by urologists, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists, working together.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Urologic Cancer Center treats prostate, bladder, kidney, penile and testicular cancers and von Hippel-Lindau syndrome. Its urologists, surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists work from a single treatment plan made with your input. Care includes robotic, laparoscopic and ureteroscopic surgery, targeted radiation and proton therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormone therapy, and reconstructive and prosthetic surgery to restore urinary and sexual function. It sees patients at Orlando Health Cancer Institute locations across Central Florida.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for prostate and other cancers close to home in the Tampa Bay area.
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Related Pages

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Oncologists plan chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation for kidney, bladder and other urologic cancers.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists read urine cytology and tissue samples to name which urologic cancer a person has and its grade.

Learn More About Pathology
Urology

Urologists use cystoscopy, ureteroscopy and robotic surgery to find and remove cancers of the urinary tract.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to...

Learn More About Testicular Cancer
Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in...

Learn More About Penile Cancer
Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Prostate Cancer Screening

Prostate cancer screening checks for prostate cancer before you have symptoms, most often with a PSA blood test. Whether and...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer Screening
Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most...

Learn More About Tumor Marker Test
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Kidney (Renal Cell) Cancer, Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/kidney
  2. National Cancer Institute. Bladder Cancer, Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/bladder
  3. American Cancer Society. Cancer Facts and Figures.
    https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/all-cancer-facts-figures.html
  4. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Prostate Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/prostate-cancer-screening
  5. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With a Cancer Specialist

Orlando Health cancer specialists see patients across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area, for a first opinion or a second one.

Find an Oncologist

Uterine Cancer

Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that is not normal for you, especially after menopause, so it is often found early. Orlando Health gynecologic oncologists diagnose and treat every type.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone worried about a symptom or just diagnosed: the decision is which specialist, so the door is the doctor finder, unless one care team alone treats it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may be here because you had spotting or bleeding after menopause, because a biopsy of the uterine lining came back abnormal, or because a doctor has just told you the word cancer. Bleeding after menopause has several causes, and most are not cancer, so having it checked is how you find out.

Uterine cancer is the most common gynecologic cancer in the United States, and the number of cases has been rising. The good news is that it often causes bleeding early, before it spreads, and many people are cured with surgery alone. A smaller group of uterine cancers grow faster or start in the muscle wall of the uterus, and these need more treatment.

This page explains what uterine cancer is, the signs to know, what raises the risk, how it is found and treated, and what life can look like after treatment.

What Is Uterine Cancer?

Uterine cancer forms when cells in the uterus, the organ where a baby grows during pregnancy, grow out of control. It is one of the gynecologic cancers. It is most common after menopause, and the average age at diagnosis is about 60, though it can occur in younger women.

The two main kinds are:

  • Endometrial cancer: starts in the lining of the uterus. More than 9 in 10 uterine cancers are this kind. Most are endometrioid cancers, which tend to grow slowly. Others, such as serous and clear cell cancers, grow faster.
  • Uterine sarcoma: starts in the muscle wall or supporting tissue of the uterus. It is rare and often has no early signs. See sarcoma.

Symptoms of Uterine Cancer

About 9 in 10 people with endometrial cancer have abnormal vaginal bleeding. Signs include:

  • Any bleeding or spotting after menopause, even a small amount.
  • Bleeding between periods, periods that are much heavier or longer than usual, or bleeding after sex.
  • Watery or blood-tinged discharge.
  • Pain or pressure in the pelvis.
  • Weight loss you cannot explain, or a mass you can feel, with later cancers.

Bleeding after menopause is never normal, and it should be checked soon, even if it stops.

When to Get Help Now

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for:

  • Heavy vaginal bleeding that soaks through a pad or more every hour.
  • A fever during chemotherapy or with low blood counts.
  • Chest pain or trouble breathing.
  • New weakness or numbness in your legs, or losing control of your bladder or bowels.
  • Bleeding that will not stop, coughing up blood or vomiting blood.
  • A seizure or sudden confusion.
  • Fainting.

Call your care team the same day for:

  • Swelling, pain or warmth in one leg.
  • Pain in your belly or pelvis that is getting worse.
  • Pain or burning when you pass urine, or diarrhea that keeps you from drinking for a day.
  • Redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

When you cannot tell which list you are in, call your care team and describe what is happening; if nobody can be reached and it looks like the first list, go.

Causes of Uterine Cancer

Most endometrial cancers are linked to estrogen. Estrogen makes the lining of the uterus grow, and progesterone balances it. When the lining is exposed to estrogen for years without enough progesterone, it can thicken, a change called endometrial hyperplasia, and in some people that leads to cancer. Body fat makes estrogen, which is why excess weight is the largest risk factor. Some faster-growing types are not linked to hormones, and why they are becoming more common is not yet known. A small share of uterine cancers come from an inherited condition called Lynch syndrome.

Risk Factors for Uterine Cancer

Some risk factors are linked to hormones and health:

  • Excess weight. A body mass index over 30 raises the risk two to four times.
  • Taking estrogen after menopause without a progestin, in someone who still has a uterus.
  • Diabetes.
  • Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
  • Taking tamoxifen for breast cancer.

Others are part of your history:

  • Being older, especially after menopause.
  • Starting periods early or reaching menopause late.
  • Never having been pregnant.
  • Lynch syndrome, or a family history of uterine or colorectal cancer.
  • Past radiation to the pelvis, for uterine sarcoma.

Black women are more likely to have faster-growing types and to have them found later, so any unusual bleeding deserves prompt care. Having a risk factor does not mean you will get uterine cancer.

Prevention of Uterine Cancer

There is no screening test for uterine cancer for people at average risk, so knowing the signs is the most useful step. You can lower your risk:

  • Reach and keep a healthy weight, and stay active. For some people with severe obesity, weight loss surgery lowers the risk.
  • If you take estrogen after menopause and still have a uterus, take it with a progestin, as your doctor advises.
  • Birth control pills and hormonal IUDs lower the risk while you use them and for years after.
  • Manage diabetes and PCOS with your doctor.

People with Lynch syndrome may be offered regular checks of the uterine lining and surgery to remove the uterus and ovaries after childbearing. Genetic counseling helps when several relatives have had uterine or colorectal cancer.

Diagnosis of Uterine Cancer

Your doctor asks about your bleeding and does a pelvic exam. Tests that help include:

  • A transvaginal ultrasound, which measures how thick the lining of the uterus is.
  • An endometrial biopsy, which takes a small sample of the lining through a thin tube, usually in the office.
  • Hysteroscopy, or dilation and curettage (D&C), which looks inside the uterus or removes tissue when an office biopsy is not enough.

If cancer is found, a CT scan, MRI or PET-CT scan may show whether it has spread. The tumor is also tested with molecular profiling for features such as mismatch repair status, which helps choose treatment and can point to Lynch syndrome. The final stage is set after surgery.

Treatment Options for Uterine Cancer

Your plan depends on the type, stage and features of the cancer, your health and what matters to you.

Procedures and Surgery

Surgery is the main treatment for most uterine cancers. A hysterectomy removes the uterus and cervix, usually along with both ovaries and fallopian tubes. The surgeon also checks the lymph nodes, often by removing only the first few nodes the cancer would reach, called sentinel nodes, through lymph node removal. Most of these operations can be done through small incisions with robotic surgery, which usually means a shorter hospital stay and a faster recovery. Read more about cancer surgery.

Radiation

Radiation therapy after surgery lowers the chance the cancer returns for some people. It can be given inside the vagina, called brachytherapy, or from outside the body.

Medicines

  • Chemotherapy for higher-stage or faster-growing cancers.
  • Immunotherapy, often with chemotherapy, for advanced cancers and especially those with mismatch repair changes.
  • Targeted therapy for some advanced or returning cancers.
  • Hormone therapy with a progestin for some slow-growing cancers. For a very early, slow-growing cancer in someone who hopes to become pregnant, it can sometimes be used in place of surgery, with close checks.

Clinical trials may also be an option; use the Find a Clinical Trial link on this page. Your plan is your own, made with your care team.

Living With Uterine Cancer

After a minimally invasive hysterectomy, most people go home within a day and return to light activity in about two weeks. Removing the ovaries brings on menopause if you have not reached it, and your team can help with the symptoms. After vaginal brachytherapy, a vaginal dilator, used as your team shows you, helps keep the vagina healthy. Swelling in the legs after lymph node removal can be eased with lymphedema therapy. Follow-up visits continue for several years. Staying active and keeping a healthy weight support your overall health, and many people also manage heart disease or diabetes alongside cancer care. Cancer rehabilitation and support groups help you regain strength.

When to Talk to Your Care Team

Contact your team about any new bleeding, pain, swelling or side effects. Bring your medicines, your family history of cancer and your questions: what type and stage the cancer is, whether you need treatment after surgery, what the molecular results mean, and whether your family should consider genetic testing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is bleeding after menopause always cancer?

No. Most often it comes from thinning tissue, polyps or hormone changes. Because it can be the first sign of cancer, it should always be checked.

Will I need chemotherapy?

Many people with early, slow-growing cancer need surgery alone. Your team decides after surgery, based on the stage and the tumor's features.

Can uterine cancer be found with a Pap test?

Not reliably. A Pap test checks the cervix. Bleeding after menopause or between periods is the sign to report.

Can I have children after uterine cancer?

For a very early, slow-growing cancer, hormone treatment can sometimes delay surgery until after pregnancy. Ask about fertility before treatment starts.

Does weight loss help after treatment?

Keeping a healthy weight and staying active support recovery and help with conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. Your team can connect you with a dietitian.

Who Treats It and Where

Uterine cancer is cared for by gynecologists, gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists and nurse navigators.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Gynecologic Cancer Center treats uterine cancer with gynecologic oncologists, radiation oncologists, nurse practitioners and oncology nurses, and offers robotic surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and integrative medicine. Its gynecologic cancer surgeries are performed at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies, and it sees patients at Cancer Institute locations across Central Florida.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Chemotherapy and infusion for solid tumors, at its offices in Pasco County.
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Cancer

Gynecologic oncologists remove the uterus, often robotically, and add radiation, chemotherapy or immunotherapy as needed.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists grade the tumor and test it for mismatch repair changes that guide treatment and can point to Lynch syndrome.

Learn More About Pathology
Women's

Gynecologists check bleeding after menopause with ultrasound and an office biopsy of the uterine lining.

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Conditions
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

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Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage...

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Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

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Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or...

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Treatments
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Endometrial Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/uterine/patient/endometrial-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Endometrial Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/endometrial-cancer.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Uterine Sarcoma.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/uterine-sarcoma.html
  4. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Uterine Cancers.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

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Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost anywhere, most often in the intestines, pancreas, appendix, rectum and lungs. Many grow slowly, some make hormones that cause symptoms, and most can be treated or controlled for a long time.

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Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or feeling full fast, are easy to mistake for everyday problems, so a change that lasts deserves a check. Orlando Health gynecologic oncologists diagnose and treat it.

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Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer starts in the cells of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps you digest food and control blood sugar. It often causes few signs early on, so a fast, clear plan matters. Treatment combines surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, chosen for where the tumor is and how far it reaches.

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Parathyroid Cancer

Parathyroid cancer starts in one of the four tiny glands in the neck that control the calcium in your blood. It is very rare, and most problems with these glands are not cancer. The usual first sign is a high calcium level. Surgery to remove the gland and the tissue around it is the main treatment.

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Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in skin color. Found early, it can often be treated in ways that keep the penis and how it works.

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Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis means cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the thin lining of the belly. It most often comes from cancers of the appendix, colon, stomach or ovary. Treatment depends on where it started, and Orlando Health care teams offer medicine and, for some people, surgery with HIPEC.

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Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow a mastectomy or a lumpectomy. It is common, it has a cause, and medicines, therapy and procedures can ease it.

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Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer in men after skin cancer. Most prostate cancers grow slowly, and when found early, many men have several good choices for care.

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Prostate Cancer Screening

Prostate cancer screening checks for prostate cancer before you have symptoms, most often with a PSA blood test. Whether and when to start is a choice you make with your doctor, usually in your 50s, or earlier if you are Black or prostate cancer runs in your family.

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Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at the tumor and very little beyond it, which can lower the dose to healthy tissue nearby. It is used for some cancers in children and adults, often near sensitive organs.

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Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it before it starts. Treatment often combines medicine, radiation and surgery, and Orlando Health care teams plan each step with you to protect bowel control where they can.

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Rectal Spacers

A rectal spacer is a soft gel placed between the prostate and the rectum before radiation for prostate cancer. It moves the rectum a little farther from the radiation to help protect it. Placement is a short outpatient procedure, and your body absorbs the gel on its own over several months.

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Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center

Lung, esophageal and chest cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Ocoee and Winter Garden.

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Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage or bone. It often shows up as a lump that grows over weeks or months. Teams that include surgeons, oncologists and radiation oncologists plan its care together.

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Sarcoma

Bone and soft tissue cancer specialists in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee who plan your care together.

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Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of your colon for polyps, cancer and other changes. It needs only a simple bowel prep, and most people have it without sedation.

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Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is the most common cancer in the United States, and when it is found early, nearly every case can be treated successfully, often with a short procedure in the office.

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A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many start as cancer elsewhere that has spread to the spine. Back pain is the most common sign. Orlando Health teams diagnose spinal tumors and treat them together.

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Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most often on skin that gets a lot of sun. Found early, it is very treatable, usually with a short procedure in the office.

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Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions instead of several weeks. It treats some early lung and prostate cancers, some tumors of the liver, pancreas and spine, and tumors that have spread, without an incision or a hospital stay.

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Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, starts in the lining of the stomach. Its early signs, like indigestion or feeling full fast, are easy to miss, so a lasting change deserves a check. Orlando Health care teams find it, stage it and treat it with medicine and surgery.

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Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection

Submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection, or STER, removes a tumor from deep in the wall of the esophagus or stomach using a flexible scope passed through the mouth. There is no cut on the skin, and most people stay in the hospital for a day or two.

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Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to 40. It is also one of the most treatable cancers: most men are cured, often with surgery alone, and go on to have children and full lives.

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Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall and the lining around the lungs. Thoracic surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists and lung and digestive specialists care for them together.

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Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid cancer starts in the butterfly-shaped gland at the base of the neck. It is often found as a lump during an exam or on a scan for something else. Most thyroid cancers grow slowly and are very treatable, and surgery is the main treatment, sometimes followed by radioactive iodine.

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Thyroid Nodules

A thyroid nodule is a lump in the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. Nodules are very common, and most are harmless. An ultrasound and sometimes a needle biopsy tell which few need treatment. Many only need watching, and those that cause symptoms can be shrunk or removed.

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Trachelectomy

A trachelectomy removes the cervix while keeping the uterus, so a person treated for small, early cervical cancer may still be able to have a baby. Gynecologic oncologists perform it, often through small incisions.

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Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It needs no large incision, many people go home the same day, and it can treat small tumors in the liver, kidney, lung, bone and other organs when surgery is not the best choice.

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Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor through a thin tube placed in an artery at the groin or wrist. It is most often used for liver tumors, and it can also make some tumors safer to remove with surgery.

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Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most often used to track how well cancer treatment is working and to watch for cancer coming back. A high result on its own does not mean you have cancer.

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Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your own tumor, grown into billions in a lab and returned to your body through an IV to attack the cancer. It involves surgery, a hospital stay and close care from a specialized team.

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Urologic Cancer Center

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Urologic Cancers

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Urostomy

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Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum or in the anus. It ends with a permanent colostomy, an opening on the belly for stool. Many people return to work, travel and the activities they enjoy.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your surgeon has recommended an abdominoperineal resection, often shortened to APR, you are probably facing two big things at once: cancer surgery and life with a colostomy. Both bring questions, and it is natural to feel uneasy about the stoma in particular. Surgeons recommend this operation when a tumor is too close to the muscles that control the bowels to remove it safely any other way, so it gives the best chance of removing the cancer completely.

The operation removes the rectum, the anus and the muscles around them, along with nearby fat and lymph nodes. Because the anus is removed, the end of the colon is brought out through the belly wall as a permanent colostomy, and stool collects in a small pouch you empty and change. Before surgery, an ostomy nurse helps you plan where the stoma will go and teaches you how to care for it.

This page explains what the operation is, who needs it, how to prepare, what recovery looks like and how life goes on afterward.

What Is an Abdominoperineal Resection?

An abdominoperineal resection is an operation done in two areas: the abdomen, or belly, and the perineum, the skin between the legs around the anus. Working through the belly, the surgeon frees the rectum and the tissue around it, called the mesorectum, which holds the lymph nodes where rectal cancer tends to spread first. Working from below, the surgeon removes the anus and the sphincter muscles. The tissue comes out in one piece so a pathologist can check that the edges are clear of cancer.

The surgeon then closes the wound between the legs and creates the colostomy. You are asleep under general anesthesia for the whole operation, which usually takes several hours.

Kinds of Abdominoperineal Resection

  • Laparoscopic APR. The belly part is done through several small incisions with a camera and slim instruments, which can mean less pain and a faster recovery.
  • Robotic APR. The surgeon works from a console that controls the instruments, which gives a magnified view deep in the pelvis. See robotic surgery.
  • Open APR. The belly part is done through one longer incision, used when scar tissue, tumor size or other factors make it the safer choice.
  • Extended or extralevator APR. For some tumors, the surgeon removes more of the pelvic floor muscle to get clear edges. The wound may then be closed with a flap of tissue moved from nearby by a plastic surgeon.

Why an Abdominoperineal Resection Is Performed

An APR is used to remove cancer that lies too low to save the anal sphincter while still removing all of it. The main reasons are:

  • Rectal cancer very close to the anus, or growing into the sphincter muscles.
  • Anal cancer that remains or returns after chemotherapy and radiation, which are the first treatment for most anal cancers.
  • Rarer tumors in the lower rectum or anus, such as melanoma in some cases.

Many people with rectal cancer have chemotherapy and radiation therapy first, which can shrink the tumor. Sometimes that allows a sphincter-saving operation instead, so your surgeon will review your scans again after this treatment.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if your tumor involves or lies very near the sphincter muscles, if saving them would leave cancer behind or leave you with poor bowel control, and if you are healthy enough for major surgery. Your surgeon, oncologists and you decide together, after looking at your pelvic MRI, your response to earlier treatment and your own priorities.

How to Prepare

  • Meet the ostomy nurse. An ostomy nurse marks the best spot for your stoma on your belly and shows you the supplies before surgery.
  • Medicines. Bring a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Bowel preparation. You may drink a laxative solution and take antibiotics the day before.
  • Eating and drinking. Your team will tell you when to stop eating and may give you a carbohydrate drink to take before surgery.
  • Stop smoking. Stopping now helps the wounds heal.
  • Plan for home. Arrange help for the first weeks and a soft cushion for chairs.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

An IV is placed and anesthesia puts you to sleep. A urinary catheter is placed. The surgeon frees the rectum through the belly, removes the rectum and anus through the perineum, closes the wound there and brings the colon through the belly wall to form the stoma.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area, then move to a hospital room. Most people stay several days. Nurses help you walk the first day, start you on liquids and then food, and teach you to empty and change your pouch. The catheter usually stays a few days.

Recovery

Full recovery takes six to eight weeks or longer. The wound between the legs heals more slowly than the belly incisions, and a soft cushion helps for a while. Avoid heavy lifting until your surgeon clears you. A home health or ostomy nurse may visit to help with the stoma and the wound.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing, heavy bleeding or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, swelling or drainage from either wound, a stoma that turns dark or stops putting out stool, or trouble passing urine.

Risks and Complications

Your surgical team takes many steps to lower these risks. They include:

  • Slow healing or infection of the wound between the legs, the most common problem, especially after radiation.
  • Bleeding and infection inside the belly.
  • Trouble passing urine for a while, because nerves to the bladder run close to the rectum.
  • Changes in sexual function, such as erection or ejaculation problems in men and dryness or pain in women.
  • Stoma problems, such as skin irritation, a hernia beside the stoma or a stoma that pulls in.
  • A sensation of still needing to pass stool, called phantom rectum, which usually fades.
  • Blood clots, a slow-moving bowel, and reactions to anesthesia.

Results of Abdominoperineal Resection

The goal is to remove all of the cancer with clear edges, and for many people it does. A pathologist's report on the removed tissue shows the final stage and guides any further treatment. The colostomy is permanent. Over time most people manage their pouch in a few minutes a day, eat a regular diet, and return to work, exercise, travel and intimacy. Follow-up visits, scans and blood tests continue for several years.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the colostomy permanent?

Yes. Because the anus is removed, the colostomy stays for life.

Will people be able to tell I have a stoma?

Usually not. Modern pouches are flat and odor-proof, and fit under everyday clothes.

How long will I be in the hospital?

Most people stay several days. Your team will tell you what to expect for your operation.

Can I still have sex after surgery?

Many people can. Talk with your surgeon about nerve-sparing technique, and ask about treatments for any changes.

Is there support for living with an ostomy?

Yes. Ostomy nurses, support groups and the United Ostomy Associations of America offer practical help and people who have been there.

Who Provides It and Where

Abdominoperineal resection is performed by colon and rectal surgeons and surgical oncologists, sometimes with a plastic surgeon to close the wound.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Surgeons who plan rectal cancer surgery with medical and radiation oncologists, operating through small incisions, some with robotic help, when they can.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators for gastrointestinal cancers, and survivorship and support. At its St. Petersburg location at Institute Square, colon and rectal surgeons treat rectal cancer, with sphincter-saving surgery where it is possible, and offer laparoscopic abdominoperineal resection for anal cancer.
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Related Service Lines
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons close a large wound between the legs with a tissue flap when more muscle is removed.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Oncologists plan chemotherapy and radiation around this surgery for very low rectal and anal cancers.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons remove the lower rectum and anus and create the permanent colostomy.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Treatments
Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool...

Learn More About Colostomy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

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Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Rectal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/rectal-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Surgery for Rectal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/treating/rectal-cancer-surgery.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Colostomy Guide.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/surgery/ostomies/colostomy.html
  4. MedlinePlus. Ostomy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ostomy.html
  5. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Rectal Cancer and Anal Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few minutes, needs no sedation, and helps find the cause of bleeding, pain, itching or a lump.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may have been told you need an anoscopy because of bleeding, pain or itching around the anus, or to follow up an abnormal anal Pap test. It is natural to feel embarrassed or uneasy about an exam in this part of the body. Doctors who do anoscopy do it often, and the exam is short.

Most of the problems an anoscopy finds are common and treatable, such as hemorrhoids, small tears called fissures, or an infection. It can also find changes in the lining of the anus that need watching or treatment, so they never have the chance to become cancer.

An anoscopy is different from a colonoscopy. It looks only at the last few inches of the bowel, so there is usually no bowel prep and no sedation, and you can go straight back to your day.

This page explains what an anoscopy is, why doctors order it, what happens during the exam and what your results mean.

What Is an Anoscopy?

An anoscopy is an exam of the anal canal and the lowest part of the rectum. The anal canal is the short passage, about 1 to 2 inches long, at the end of the digestive tract where stool leaves the body.

The doctor uses an anoscope, a small, smooth tube about 3 to 4 inches long, with a light. It is gently placed a short way into the anus, and the doctor looks at the lining as it is slowly drawn back. If something looks unusual, the doctor can take a tiny tissue sample, called a biopsy, during the same visit.

Because the anoscope reaches only the end of the bowel, an anoscopy cannot check the rest of the colon. When the whole colon needs to be seen, your doctor will order a colonoscopy or a sigmoidoscopy.

Kinds of Anoscopy

  • Standard anoscopy. The everyday office exam described above, used to look for hemorrhoids, fissures, growths and other causes of symptoms.
  • High-resolution anoscopy. A more detailed exam that uses a magnifying scope, much like the one used to look at the cervix after an abnormal Pap test. A mild vinegar solution is applied to the lining, which makes abnormal cells easier to see. The doctor takes biopsies of any areas that look abnormal. It is the main test for finding and following anal dysplasia, the precancerous changes caused by HPV.

Why an Anoscopy Is Ordered

An anoscopy helps find the cause of symptoms and checks the lining of the anus for changes that need care. Doctors order one to look for:

  • Hemorrhoids, swollen veins inside or around the anus
  • Anal fissures, small tears in the lining that cause pain with bowel movements
  • An anal fistula or abscess, an infected tunnel or pocket near the anus
  • Polyps, warts or other growths
  • Abnormal cells after an abnormal anal Pap test
  • Anal cancer, where an exam finds a lump or an area that looks abnormal

Who Needs One

You may need an anoscopy if you have:

  • Bright red blood on toilet paper or in the toilet
  • Pain, itching or burning around the anus
  • A lump, swelling or discharge near the anus
  • A change in bowel habits or narrower stools that lasts

People at higher risk for anal cancer may also have regular anal cancer screening, which can include an anal Pap test and high-resolution anoscopy. This includes people living with HIV, people who have had an organ transplant, and people with a history of cervical, vaginal or vulvar cancer or precancer. Ask your doctor whether screening fits your situation.

Some of these symptoms come from conditions that are minor. Rectal bleeding should still be checked, rather than put down to hemorrhoids without an exam.

How to Prepare

Most people need little or no preparation for a standard anoscopy. Your care team will tell you what to do.

  • You may be asked to use an enema or a laxative beforehand to empty the lower bowel. Many offices do not need this.
  • Empty your bladder just before the exam, which makes it more comfortable.
  • Tell your care team about blood thinners, such as warfarin, apixaban or clopidogrel, especially if a biopsy may be taken. Do not stop any medicine unless you are told to.

For a high-resolution anoscopy, you may be asked to avoid enemas, douches, creams in the anal area and anal sex for 24 hours beforehand, since these can affect what the doctor sees.

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What Happens During the Test

You undress from the waist down and cover up with a sheet or gown. You lie on your left side with your knees drawn up toward your chest, or lean forward over an exam table.

The doctor usually starts with a digital rectal exam, gently feeling inside the anus with a gloved, lubricated finger. Then the lubricated anoscope is slowly placed a short way into the anus. You may feel pressure, or feel as if you need to have a bowel movement. Taking slow, deep breaths and relaxing your muscles helps it pass easily.

The doctor looks at the lining while drawing the anoscope out. If a biopsy is needed, you may feel a quick pinch. A numbing medicine may be used first.

A standard anoscopy takes only a few minutes. A high-resolution anoscopy takes longer, often 15 to 30 minutes. You can drive yourself home and go back to your normal activities right away.

Risks

An anoscopy is a low-risk exam.

  • Mild discomfort during the exam, which ends when the anoscope is removed.
  • A little bleeding, especially if you have hemorrhoids or a biopsy was taken. This usually stops within a day or two.
  • Soreness for a day or so after a biopsy.

Call your care team if bleeding is heavier than a small streak or does not stop within a couple of days, or if you develop a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher or pain that gets worse. Go to the emergency room or call 911 for bleeding that will not stop.

Understanding Your Results

Your doctor can often tell you what was seen before you leave.

  • Normal. The lining looks healthy, and no hemorrhoids, tears or growths were found.
  • A common finding. Hemorrhoids, a fissure or a fistula are treated with diet changes, medicine, an office procedure or surgery, depending on the problem.
  • Biopsy taken. A pathologist studies the tissue, and results usually take a few days to two weeks.
  • Dysplasia found. Low-grade changes often clear on their own and are watched with regular exams. High-grade changes are usually treated in the office to keep them from becoming cancer.
  • Cancer found. If a biopsy shows anal cancer, more tests show its size and whether it has spread, and you are guided to specialists who plan treatment. Most anal cancers respond very well to treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does an anoscopy hurt?

Most people feel only pressure or mild discomfort for a minute or two. Relaxing and breathing slowly makes the exam easier. Tell your doctor if it hurts, especially if you have a fissure.

Do I need someone to drive me?

No. There is no sedation for a standard anoscopy, so you can drive yourself and go back to work the same day.

How is it different from a colonoscopy?

An anoscopy looks only at the last few inches of the bowel and takes minutes in an office. A colonoscopy looks at the whole colon, needs a full bowel prep and is done under sedation.

Why do I need one if I already had a normal colonoscopy?

A colonoscopy passes quickly through the anal canal and may not show it in detail. An anoscopy gives a close look at that short area, where hemorrhoids, fissures and HPV-related changes appear.

Will I need another one?

Often not, if the cause of your symptoms is found and treated. People being watched for anal dysplasia have repeat exams on a schedule their doctor sets.

Who Provides It and Where

Anoscopy is performed by colon and rectal surgeons, gastroenterologists and some primary care doctors. High-resolution anoscopy is done by clinicians with special training in it.

  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute colon and rectal surgeons use anoscopy to assess abnormal findings in the anus and take biopsies, high-resolution anoscopy to diagnose and follow anal dysplasia and HPV-related changes, and anoscopy to evaluate anal fistulas.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Radiation, chemotherapy, nurse navigators and support for people treated for anal cancer.
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Cancer

Oncology teams take over care when an anoscopy and biopsy show cancer of the anus.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colorectal surgeons use anoscopy in the office to find hemorrhoids, fissures, fistulas and HPV-related changes.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Pathology

Pathologists grade the tissue taken during high-resolution anoscopy as normal, dysplasia or cancer.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

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Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of...

Learn More About Sigmoidoscopy
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

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Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

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Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

Learn More About Colorectal Cancer Screening

References

  1. MedlinePlus. Anoscopy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003890.htm
  2. American Cancer Society. Can Anal Cancer Be Found Early?
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/anal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Tests for Anal Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/anal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/how-diagnosed.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Anal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/anal/patient/anal-treatment-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for appendicitis and sometimes to treat or confirm a tumor of the appendix. Most are done through small incisions, and you can live a full, healthy life without an appendix.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you have been told you need your appendix removed, it may be happening quickly, often after a trip to the emergency room with belly pain. Or you may be planning the operation weeks ahead, after an infection has calmed down or after a scan or an earlier surgery found something in the appendix. Either way, appendectomy is one of the most common operations performed, and most people recover in a few weeks.

The appendix is a narrow tube about the length of a finger, attached where the small and large intestines meet in the lower right belly. When it becomes blocked and inflamed, it can burst and spread infection, which is why appendicitis is usually treated promptly. Your body does not need the appendix to digest food or stay healthy.

Every appendix that is removed is examined by a pathologist. Rarely, this finds a small tumor, and for many small tumors, no other treatment is needed. This page explains how the operation is done, who needs it, how to prepare and what recovery is like.

What Is an Appendectomy?

An appendectomy removes the whole appendix. The surgeon closes off the base of the appendix where it joins the large intestine, closes off its blood supply, and lifts it out. If the appendix has burst, the surgeon also washes out the belly and may leave a small drain.

The operation is done under general anesthesia, so you are asleep and feel nothing. A simple laparoscopic appendectomy usually takes about an hour.

Kinds of Appendectomy

  • Laparoscopic appendectomy. The surgeon makes two or three small incisions in the belly and works with a thin camera and slim instruments. This is the most common approach, with less pain and a quicker return home. See laparoscopic surgery.
  • Robotic appendectomy. The surgeon controls the instruments from a console using a robotic system, through the same kind of small incisions. See robotic surgery.
  • Open appendectomy. The surgeon makes one incision in the lower right belly. It may be used when the appendix has burst, when there is an abscess, or when scarring from past surgery makes small incisions unsafe.
  • Appendectomy with more extensive surgery. For some tumors of the appendix, the surgeon also removes the nearby part of the large intestine and lymph nodes, an operation called a right hemicolectomy. See colectomy.

Why an Appendectomy Is Performed

The most common reasons are:

  • Appendicitis, an infection and swelling of the appendix. Its classic sign is pain that starts around the navel and moves to the lower right belly, with fever, nausea and loss of appetite.
  • A burst appendix or an abscess. Sometimes the infection is treated first with antibiotics and drainage, and the appendix is removed weeks later, called an interval appendectomy.
  • A tumor of the appendix, such as a neuroendocrine tumor or a mucinous growth, found on a scan, during another operation, or when the removed appendix is examined. See appendiceal cancers and neuroendocrine tumors.

Who Is a Candidate

Most people with appendicitis are advised to have surgery. For some adults with mild appendicitis that has not burst, antibiotics alone are an option, though the appendicitis returns for some people and they then need surgery. Your surgeon will talk through which choice fits your scans, your health and your preferences. For a tumor, the type and size decide whether an appendectomy alone is enough.

How to Prepare

For appendicitis, preparation happens quickly in the hospital: you stop eating and drinking, an IV is placed, and you receive fluids, pain medicine and antibiotics. For a planned operation:

  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • Food and drink. You will be told not to eat or drink for a set number of hours before surgery.
  • Smoking. Stopping smoking before surgery helps healing.
  • A ride home. Arrange for someone to drive you and stay with you the first night.
  • Questions. For a tumor, ask whether more surgery or tests may be needed after the pathology results.

Your surgical team will give you written instructions that fit your situation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You meet your surgical team and anesthesia puts you to sleep. In a laparoscopic or robotic operation, the surgeon fills the belly with gas to make room to see, removes the appendix through one of the small incisions in a protective bag, then closes the incisions with stitches or glue.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area where nurses watch your breathing and pain. After a laparoscopic appendectomy for appendicitis that has not burst, many people go home the same day or the next day. After a burst appendix, the stay is often several days, with antibiotics through an IV.

Recovery

Soreness at the incisions, and shoulder pain from the gas, are common for a few days. Most people walk the same day and return to light activity and desk work within one to two weeks. Avoid heavy lifting for a few weeks, or as your surgeon advises; recovery takes longer after open surgery or a burst appendix. Eat light meals at first.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, vomiting blood or black, tarry stools, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, belly pain that is getting worse, redness, swelling or drainage at an incision, vomiting that keeps you from drinking, or no bowel movement for several days.

Risks and Complications

Appendectomy is a common operation with a low rate of serious problems. The risks include:

  • Infection at an incision, or an abscess inside the belly, more often after a burst appendix.
  • Bleeding.
  • Injury to the bowel or nearby organs, which is uncommon.
  • A slow return of bowel function for a few days after surgery.
  • Hernia at an incision, later on.
  • Blood clots and reactions to anesthesia.
  • Switching to open surgery when the operation cannot be finished safely through small incisions, which keeps you safe.

Your surgeon will talk through the risks as they apply to you.

Results of Appendectomy

Removing the appendix cures appendicitis, and it almost never comes back. Digestion and the immune system work normally without the appendix. The pathology report usually confirms simple inflammation. If it finds a tumor, your surgeon will explain the type and size; a small neuroendocrine tumor fully removed often needs no more treatment beyond follow-up, while others may need more surgery or other care planned with a cancer team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I live normally without my appendix?

Yes. Your body does not need the appendix, and most people notice no change in digestion or health after it is removed.

Can appendicitis be treated without surgery?

For some adults with mild appendicitis that has not burst, antibiotics alone may work. Some of these people later need surgery when it returns. Your surgeon will help you weigh the choice.

How soon can I go back to work or school?

Many people return to desk work or school within one to two weeks after a laparoscopic operation. Heavy lifting and sports wait for your surgeon's clearance.

Why did my surgeon find a tumor in my appendix?

Every removed appendix is examined under a microscope, and rarely this finds a tumor nobody expected. Many are small and fully removed by the operation itself.

Will I have scars?

A laparoscopic or robotic operation leaves two or three small scars that usually fade. An open operation leaves one short scar in the lower right belly.

Who Provides It and Where

Appendectomy is performed by general surgeons, and by colon and rectal surgeons and surgical oncologists when a tumor is involved.

  • Orlando Health Medical Group Surgery. General and laparoscopic surgeons who perform appendectomy among other procedures.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Cancer specialists who plan the next steps when an appendectomy finds a tumor, with nurse navigators and support.

Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health colorectal surgeons treat appendiceal cancers with surgery.

Most appendectomies for appendicitis begin with a visit to an emergency room.

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[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Cancer teams plan next steps when the removed appendix shows a tumor, from follow-up to more surgery.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons remove part of the large intestine with the appendix for some appendix tumors.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
General Surgery

General surgeons remove an inflamed appendix, most often laparoscopically, for appendicitis.

Learn More About General Surgery
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Treatments
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation
Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor...

Learn More About Tumor Embolization

References

  1. MedlinePlus. Appendectomy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002921.htm
  2. MedlinePlus. Appendicitis.
    https://medlineplus.gov/appendicitis.html
  3. American College of Surgeons. Appendectomy.
    https://www.facs.org/for-patients/the-day-of-your-surgery/appendectomy/
  4. National Cancer Institute. Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/gi-neuroendocrine-tumors/patient/gi-neuroendocrine-treatment-pdq
  5. American Cancer Society. Appendix Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/appendix-cancer.html

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat the bowel so it shows clearly on X-rays. It takes about 30 to 60 minutes and needs no sedation.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the GI Cancer Center. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Your doctor may have ordered a barium enema to look at the shape of your colon and rectum, or because another test could not show all of it. It is an older exam than a colonoscopy, and today doctors use it for a narrower set of questions, often where its X-ray outline of the whole bowel answers something a scope cannot.

The exam is done in an imaging department by a radiologist, a doctor trained to read X-rays. It is not painful, though you will feel full and crampy while the barium is in place, and you need the same kind of bowel prep the day before as for a colonoscopy.

A barium enema can show narrowed areas, pouches in the bowel wall, twists, leaks, and growths such as polyps or tumors. It cannot remove polyps or take tissue samples, so a finding usually leads to a colonoscopy.

This page explains why the exam is ordered, how to prepare, what happens on the day and what your results mean.

What Is a Barium Enema?

A barium enema, also called a lower GI series, is an X-ray exam of the large intestine. The large intestine is made up of the colon and the rectum.

Soft tissue such as the bowel wall barely shows on an ordinary X-ray. Barium sulfate is a chalky, white liquid that X-rays cannot pass through. When it coats the inside of the colon, the outline of the bowel shows up clearly, along with anything that changes its shape.

The barium is given through a small, soft tube placed a short way into the rectum. The radiologist watches the barium move through the colon on a live X-ray screen, called fluoroscopy, and takes still pictures from several angles.

Kinds of Barium Enema

  • Single-contrast barium enema. The colon is filled with barium alone. It shows the overall shape of the bowel, such as a narrowed area, a blockage or a twist.
  • Double-contrast or air-contrast barium enema. After the barium, air is gently added to open up the colon. The barium leaves a thin coating on the lining, which shows smaller details such as polyps.
  • Water-soluble contrast enema. When there may be a leak or a tear in the bowel, or soon after bowel surgery, a clear iodine-based contrast is used instead of barium. It is safer if it escapes the bowel.

Why a Barium Enema Is Ordered

Doctors may order a barium enema to:

  • Look at the shape and position of the colon and rectum, for example as part of the workup for rectal prolapse, when the rectum slips out through the anus
  • Find narrowed areas or blockages, such as a stricture from scarring or inflammation
  • See diverticula, small pouches that bulge out from the bowel wall
  • Check a connection after bowel surgery, often with water-soluble contrast, to make sure it is healed and not leaking before an ostomy is closed
  • Look for polyps or a growth when a colonoscopy could not reach the whole colon
  • Help find the cause of constipation in infants and children, such as Hirschsprung disease

Who Needs One

Most people never need a barium enema. Colonoscopy and CT colonography have largely replaced it for finding polyps and cancer, and it is not among the tests the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends for colorectal cancer screening. Your doctor may order one when its outline of the whole bowel answers a specific question, or when another test was not possible or not complete.

If you have symptoms such as rectal bleeding or a lasting change in bowel habits, ask your doctor which test is best for you.

How to Prepare

Your colon needs to be empty so the barium can coat the lining and the pictures are clear. Follow the written instructions you are given, which may differ from these general steps.

  • The day before. Drink only clear liquids, such as water, clear broth, apple juice, light-colored sports drinks, and tea or coffee without milk.
  • The bowel prep. Take the laxative you are prescribed, usually the afternoon or evening before. You may also be asked to use an enema or a suppository the night before or the morning of the exam.
  • The morning of the exam. Do not eat or drink after the time your instructions say, often midnight.
  • Tell your care team if you are or might be pregnant, if you have had recent bowel surgery or a colonoscopy with biopsy, or if you have had an allergic reaction to contrast or latex.
  • Ask about your medicines, especially diabetes medicines, since you will not be eating as usual.

Children need a different prep, often milder, and their care team will explain it.

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What Happens During the Test

You change into a gown and lie on your side on an X-ray table. A first X-ray checks that the colon is empty.

The technologist or radiologist places a small, lubricated tube a short way into your rectum. A small balloon near its tip may be gently filled to help you hold the liquid in. The barium then flows slowly into your colon. You will feel full, crampy and as if you need to have a bowel movement. Breathing slowly through your mouth and tightening your buttocks helps you hold it.

For a double-contrast exam, air is added next, which can make you feel more bloated. You will be asked to turn onto your back, your stomach and your sides, and to hold your breath while pictures are taken. The table may tilt.

When the pictures are finished, the tube is removed and you go to the bathroom to pass most of the barium. A last X-ray may be taken. The whole exam usually takes 30 to 60 minutes.

Afterward, you can eat normally and go back to your day. Drink extra water for a day or two. Your stools will be white or light gray for a few days as the barium passes. Your doctor may suggest a mild laxative to help clear it.

Risks

A barium enema is a safe test. Possible risks include:

  • Constipation, or rarely a blockage, if the barium hardens in the bowel. Drinking plenty of fluids prevents most problems.
  • Radiation. The exam uses a small amount of X-ray radiation, and the dose is kept as low as possible. Tell your care team if you are or might be pregnant.
  • A tear in the bowel wall. This is rare and more likely where the bowel is already weakened.
  • An allergic reaction to the latex in the tube or to contrast. This is rare.

Call your care team if you have not passed the barium within two to three days or cannot have a bowel movement. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher or belly pain that is getting worse. Go to the emergency room or call 911 for severe belly pain, especially with a fever, or for rectal bleeding that will not stop.

Understanding Your Results

The radiologist studies the X-rays and sends a report to the doctor who ordered the exam, usually within a few days. That doctor will go over the results with you.

  • Normal. The colon and rectum have a smooth outline, a normal shape and no narrowing or growths.
  • Diverticula, a narrowing or a change in position, such as rectal prolapse. Your doctor will explain what the finding means and the treatment options.
  • A polyp or a growth. The X-ray can show that something is there but cannot say what it is. You will usually need a colonoscopy so the area can be seen directly, sampled and removed if needed.

A barium enema can miss small polyps, so a normal result may still be followed by other tests if your symptoms continue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a barium enema hurt?

It is uncomfortable rather than painful. Most people feel full, crampy and an urge to have a bowel movement while the barium is in, and that eases once it is passed.

Will I be sedated?

No. You stay awake so you can turn into different positions and hold your breath, and you can usually drive yourself home.

Why not just have a colonoscopy?

Often a colonoscopy is the better test, since it can remove polyps and take samples. A barium enema shows the outline and shape of the whole bowel, which is the point for some questions, and it can be used when a colonoscopy could not be completed.

Why is my stool white afterward?

That is the barium passing out of your body. It is normal for a few days. Drinking extra water helps it pass.

Can children have a barium enema?

Yes. It is used in infants and children to look for causes of constipation and blockage, with a smaller tube and a prep suited to their age.

Who Provides It and Where

A barium enema is performed in a hospital or outpatient imaging department by radiologists and radiologic technologists. It is ordered by gastroenterologists, colon and rectal surgeons, general surgeons, pediatricians and primary care doctors.

  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health colorectal surgeons diagnose and treat rectal prolapse and list a barium enema among the tests used to diagnose it.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Plans care together if a growth found on imaging and confirmed by colonoscopy is cancer of the colon or rectum.
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When a barium enema shows a growth, cancer specialists plan care once colonoscopy confirms the diagnosis.

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Colon & Rectal

Colorectal surgeons order a barium enema to study rectal prolapse, narrowing and leaks after bowel surgery.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Radiology

Radiologists fill the colon with barium and read the X-rays that outline its shape.

Learn More About Radiology
Treatments
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

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Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

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Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

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Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

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Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool...

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References

  1. RadiologyInfo.org (American College of Radiology and Radiological Society of North America). Lower GI Tract X-ray (Barium Enema).
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/lowergi
  2. MedlinePlus. Barium Enema.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003817.htm
  3. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening. 2021.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  4. American Cancer Society. Colorectal Cancer Screening Tests.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/screening-tests-used.html

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for certain whether an area is cancer, and most biopsies are quick, done with numbing medicine, and let you go home the same day.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

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MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended a biopsy, you may be worried about what it could show. That worry is natural. It helps to know that many biopsies find no cancer at all, and that a biopsy is often the step that ends weeks of uncertainty with a clear answer.

Scans and blood tests can show that something looks unusual. They cannot say for certain what it is. A biopsy can, because a specialist doctor called a pathologist looks at the cells themselves. That answer guides everything that comes next, whether it is reassurance, watchful follow-up or a treatment plan made for the exact type of cancer you have.

There are several ways to take a sample. Some use a thin needle through the skin, some use a scope passed into the body, and some use a small surgical cut. The kind you have depends on where the area is and how easy it is to reach.

This page explains the main kinds of biopsy, why one is ordered, how to prepare, what happens on the day, the risks, and how to understand your results.

What Is a Biopsy?

A biopsy removes a small piece of tissue, or a small number of cells, from an area of concern. The sample goes to a lab, where a pathologist prepares it and studies it under a microscope.

The pathologist looks at the size, shape and pattern of the cells. This shows whether the area is cancer, a different condition such as an infection or inflammation, or normal tissue. If it is cancer, the sample also shows the type and how fast the cells appear to be growing.

Many samples now go through further lab tests as well. These can look for changes in the cancer's genes or proteins, which helps your care team choose treatments that target those changes. You can read more on the molecular profiling page.

Kinds of Biopsies

  • Needle biopsy. A thin needle is passed through the skin to draw out cells (fine needle aspiration) or a thin core of tissue (core needle biopsy). Imaging such as ultrasound, a CT scan or an MRI often guides the needle to the right spot. A breast biopsy is usually done this way.
  • Endoscopic biopsy. A thin, flexible tube with a camera is passed through the mouth, nose or rectum, and tiny tools take samples. Samples taken during a colonoscopy are one example. A navigational bronchoscopy reaches spots deep in the lungs.
  • Skin biopsy. A small piece of skin is shaved, punched or cut out to check a mole or a spot. See skin biopsy.
  • Surgical biopsy. A surgeon makes a cut to remove part of a lump (incisional biopsy) or the whole lump (excisional biopsy). This is used when a needle cannot reach the area or cannot take enough tissue.
  • Bone marrow biopsy. A needle takes a small sample of marrow, usually from the back of the hip bone, to check for blood cancers.

Why a Biopsy Is Ordered

A biopsy is ordered when an exam, a scan or a blood test finds something that needs a closer look. The goals are:

  • To find out whether an area is cancer.
  • To learn the type of cancer and how it behaves, which shapes treatment.
  • To check whether cancer has spread, for example to a lymph node.
  • To find out whether a cancer has come back after treatment.

Who Needs One

You may need a biopsy if you have a lump, a lung nodule, a growth found during a scope test, a mole that has changed, swollen lymph nodes that do not go away, or blood test results that point to a problem in the bone marrow. Your doctor will explain why yours was ordered and which kind fits.

How to Prepare

Your care team will give you instructions for your exact biopsy. Follow those instructions over anything on this page. In general:

  • Tell your care team about every medicine you take, including aspirin, blood thinners, vitamins and supplements. Some raise the chance of bleeding and may need to be paused. Never stop a medicine on your own.
  • Ask about eating and drinking. You may need to skip food for several hours if you will receive sedation.
  • Arrange a ride home if you will be sedated or put to sleep.
  • Mention allergies, especially to numbing medicine, latex or contrast dye.
  • Say if you are pregnant or might be, since some imaging used to guide the needle uses X-rays.
  • Write down your questions, including when and how you will get your results.
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What Happens During the Test

Most needle and skin biopsies are done as an outpatient visit while you are awake. The area is cleaned and numbed with an injection, which stings for a moment. You may feel pressure as the needle goes in, and you will be asked to lie still for a short time. Many needle biopsies take less than an hour, including the time spent setting up.

For an endoscopic biopsy, you usually receive medicine to make you sleepy and relaxed, and the samples are taken during the scope test. A surgical biopsy may be done with sedation or general anesthesia, and the cut is closed with stitches or skin glue.

Afterward, a small bandage covers the site. Most people go home the same day and return to light activity within a day or so. Your care team will tell you how to care for the site and when you can shower, exercise and lift.

Risks

A biopsy is generally safe. Possible risks include:

  • Soreness and bruising at the site for a few days.
  • Bleeding, which is usually minor.
  • Infection, which is uncommon.
  • A sample that is too small to give a clear answer, which can mean a second biopsy.
  • Risks tied to the site, such as a small chance of air leaking around a lung after a lung biopsy. Your doctor will explain any risk specific to yours.

Call your care team the same day for redness, warmth or swelling at the site that keeps growing, drainage from the site, or a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for bleeding that will not stop, chest pain or trouble breathing, or fainting.

Understanding Your Results

The pathologist writes a report and sends it to the doctor who ordered the biopsy. Results often take a few days. Some special tests on the sample can take a week or longer. Ask when to expect yours and how you will hear.

The report will say whether cancer cells were found. If they were not, the area may be benign, which means not cancer, and your doctor will explain whether any follow-up is needed. If cancer was found, the report names the type and describes features such as the grade, which tells how different the cells look from normal ones. Further results on the cancer's genes or proteins may follow.

Sometimes a result is unclear. That can happen when the sample is small, and your doctor may suggest another biopsy or a different test. Your care team will meet with you to explain what the results mean for you and plan the next step together.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a biopsy hurt?

Most people feel a quick sting from the numbing medicine, then pressure. Soreness afterward is usually mild and eased with over-the-counter pain medicine your care team approves.

Can a biopsy make cancer spread?

This worry is common, and the risk is extremely low. Doctors use careful techniques to prevent it, and the information a biopsy gives is needed to plan the right treatment.

Why do I need a biopsy if I already had a scan?

A scan shows the size and location of an area. A biopsy shows what the cells are, which a scan cannot confirm.

Does needing a biopsy mean I have cancer?

No. Many biopsies show a benign condition. A biopsy is how your doctor finds out for certain.

Can I bring someone with me?

Yes, and it often helps. A family member or friend can take notes, ask questions and drive you home if you receive sedation.

Who Provides It and Where

Biopsies are performed by surgeons, radiologists who use imaging to guide a needle, gastroenterologists and other specialists who use scopes, and dermatologists. A pathologist studies every sample.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Radiologists, surgeons and pathologists on the institute's teams diagnose every type of cancer, and a nurse navigator who knows your type of cancer helps coordinate your tests and next steps.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Plans care when a biopsy finds a cancer of the colon and rectum, liver and bile ducts, pancreas or stomach.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Diagnoses and treats breast, lung, colon, prostate and other cancers, and plans treatment once a cancer is confirmed.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health surgical oncology performs diagnostic biopsies used to detect cancer.

Biopsies are done at Orlando Health locations across Central and West Florida.

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Cancer

Cancer teams order a biopsy to confirm a diagnosis, learn the cancer type and plan treatment around it.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists study every biopsy sample under a microscope and write the report that names what the cells are.

Learn More About Pathology
Radiology

Radiologists use ultrasound, CT or MRI to guide a needle to an area that cannot be felt from outside.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

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Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

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Anal Dysplasia

Anal dysplasia means abnormal cells in the lining of the anus, most often caused by HPV. It is not cancer. Low-grade changes...

Learn More About Anal Dysplasia
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Barrett's Esophagus

Barrett's esophagus is a change in the lining of the esophagus, usually after years of acid reflux. It raises the chance of...

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Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

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Treatments
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Navigational Bronchoscopy

Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built...

Learn More About Navigational Bronchoscopy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. How Cancer Is Diagnosed.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/diagnosis
  2. American Cancer Society. Testing Biopsy and Cytology Specimens for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/biopsy-and-cytology-tests.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Biopsy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/biopsy/
  4. National Cancer Institute. Pathology Reports.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/diagnosis/pathology-reports-fact-sheet

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy blood-forming cells, from you or a donor. It is used for some leukemias, lymphomas, myeloma and other blood and immune conditions, and for some, it offers a chance of cure.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has raised a bone marrow transplant, you may be picturing major surgery. In fact, the transplant itself is an infusion through an IV, much like a blood transfusion, and you are awake for it. The hard part is the weeks around it: the strong treatment that comes first, and the time it takes your new cells to grow and your immune system to recover.

Your bone marrow is the soft, spongy tissue inside your bones. It holds stem cells that grow into red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. When a blood cancer or another disease damages the marrow, or when the strong treatment needed to control a cancer would destroy it, a transplant gives you a fresh supply of healthy stem cells.

The healthy cells can be your own, collected and stored ahead of time, or they can come from a donor. Which one you have depends on your condition. This page explains how a transplant works, what it treats, how to get ready, what each stage is like, the side effects and what to ask your team.

What Is a Bone Marrow Transplant and How Does It Work?

A bone marrow transplant puts healthy blood-forming stem cells into your bloodstream. The cells find their way to your bone marrow, take hold and begin making new blood cells. This is called engraftment.

Before the transplant, you receive high doses of chemotherapy, sometimes with radiation. This step, called conditioning, destroys cancer cells and clears space in the marrow. With a donor transplant, it also lowers your immune defenses so your body accepts the donor's cells.

A transplant works in one of two ways, depending on where the cells come from:

  • With your own cells, the transplant is a rescue. It lets your team give higher doses of chemotherapy than your marrow could otherwise survive, then restores the marrow.
  • With a donor's cells, you also gain a new immune system. The donor's immune cells can recognize and attack cancer cells that remain, which doctors call the graft-versus-cancer effect.

Today, most stem cells are collected from the blood rather than taken from the marrow itself, though the name bone marrow transplant has stayed.

Kinds of Bone Marrow Transplant

  • Autologous transplant uses your own stem cells, collected before conditioning and frozen until transplant day. It is used most often for myeloma and some lymphomas.
  • Allogeneic transplant uses stem cells from a donor whose tissue type closely matches yours. The donor can be a brother or sister or an unrelated volunteer from a donor registry.
  • Haploidentical transplant is an allogeneic transplant from a half-matched family member, such as a parent, child or sibling. It means more people can find a donor.
  • Umbilical cord blood transplant uses stem cells from cord blood donated after a baby's birth.

The same programs often give cellular therapies such as CAR T-cell therapy, which reprograms your own immune cells to fight a blood cancer. See immunotherapy.

What a Bone Marrow Transplant Is Used For

Blood cancers, most often:

  • Acute and chronic leukemia
  • Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, often when it has come back
  • Multiple myeloma and other plasma cell disorders
  • Myelodysplastic syndromes, myelofibrosis and other myeloproliferative neoplasms

Other conditions of the marrow and immune system, including aplastic anemia and other bone marrow failure conditions, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, some inherited immune deficiencies and metabolic disorders, and, in children, neuroblastoma.

A transplant can be the main treatment, or it can follow chemotherapy to keep a cancer from returning. Your team weighs your condition, its stage and how it responded to earlier treatment.

Before You Start

The evaluation. Your transplant team makes sure a transplant is right for you and that your body is ready for it. Tests may include blood tests, a bone marrow biopsy, CT or MRI scans, heart tests such as an echocardiogram and an electrocardiogram, lung function tests, X-rays and tissue typing (HLA typing) to match a donor. You also meet with a counselor or psychologist, because a transplant asks a lot of you and your family.

Your fitness. Being able to stay active is a good sign. Heart, lung or kidney disease, an active infection or very limited mobility can make a transplant unsafe.

Finding a donor. Brothers and sisters are tested first. When no family member matches, the team searches national donor registries, such as NMDP.

A caregiver. Most programs ask you to name a family member or friend who can stay with you, drive you and help at home during recovery.

Practical planning. You may need a central line, a thin tube placed in a large vein, for treatment and blood draws. Ask about fertility preservation before conditioning, time off work and a dental check.

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What to Expect

Collecting the cells. For cells from the blood, you or your donor receive shots for several days to move more stem cells into the bloodstream. The cells are then collected through a machine that filters the blood, a process called apheresis. For your own cells, they are frozen until they are needed.

Conditioning. You receive high-dose chemotherapy, and sometimes radiation, for five to 10 days. Most people stay in the hospital from this point.

Transplant day, Day Zero. The stem cells are infused through your IV, which usually takes about 30 minutes. You are awake, and it is not painful. Your team counts the days after as Day +1, Day +2 and onward.

Waiting for engraftment. For the next two to four weeks, your blood counts are very low while the new cells take hold. You may need blood and platelet transfusions and medicines to prevent infection. The usual hospital stay is two to four weeks, and some transplants are done entirely as an outpatient.

Going home and recovery. Recovery after a transplant with your own cells takes about two to three months; after a donor transplant, six months to a year. Your immune system can take up to 12 months to return to normal, so you will have frequent clinic visits, hand washing, and care to avoid crowds and people who are sick. You keep a transplant patient card with your team's contact details for any other doctor who treats you.

If you have a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher while your counts are low, it needs care right away: call your transplant team's urgent number or go to the emergency room.

Side Effects and Risks

A transplant is a demanding treatment, and its risks are serious. Your team watches closely for each of these.

  • From conditioning: tiredness, nausea, vomiting, mouth sores, hair loss, diarrhea and low blood counts.
  • Infection, while your immune system rebuilds.
  • Bleeding and anemia, until platelets and red cells recover.
  • Graft-versus-host disease, after a donor transplant, when the donor's immune cells attack your skin, gut or liver. It can be mild or serious, short-lived or long-lasting, and medicines prevent and treat it.
  • Graft failure, when the new cells do not take, which is uncommon.
  • Organ effects, on the liver, lungs, heart or kidneys.
  • Long-term effects, including infertility, early menopause, cataracts, thyroid changes and, rarely, a second cancer.
  • The disease coming back.

Most side effects can be controlled. Your team will explain which risks apply most to you and the kind of transplant you are having.

Benefits: What It Can Do

For some blood cancers, a transplant offers a chance of cure when chemotherapy alone is unlikely to provide one. For others, it can keep the cancer in remission longer. For conditions such as aplastic anemia or sickle cell disease, it can restore a marrow that makes healthy blood. What it can do depends on your condition, its stage and your health, and your team will tell you what to expect for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a bone marrow transplant hurt?

The infusion itself does not hurt. Collecting stem cells from the blood is usually comfortable, and side effects of conditioning are treated as they come.

How do I find a donor?

Your brothers and sisters are tested first, and parents and children may be half matches. Your team can also search national registries for an unrelated volunteer.

Can children have a bone marrow transplant?

Yes. Children are evaluated by specialists to make sure a transplant is a good choice for them.

When can I go back to work or school?

Many people return within a year. Your immune system can take up to 12 months to recover, and your team will tell you when it is safe.

Will I need more than one transplant?

Usually one is enough. Some conditions, such as myeloma, can call for a second, planned in advance.

Who Provides It and Where

Bone marrow transplants are given by transplant teams led by hematologist-oncologists, with pathologists, radiologists, nurses, pharmacists, therapists, researchers and counselors.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy program gives transplants with your own cells, donor cells and cord blood, along with CAR T-cell therapy, for adults and children in downtown Orlando. Transplant and follow-up care take place in one location, and the program is accredited by the Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT). Families coming from outside the area can ask about reduced hotel rates by calling (407) 498-3432.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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Comprehensive Care

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Cancer

Transplant oncologists use high-dose treatment and new stem cells to treat leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

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Pathology

Pathologists read the marrow biopsies and tissue typing that decide who needs a transplant and which donor matches.

Learn More About Pathology
Pulmonary / Critical Care

Lung specialists test lung function before transplant and treat breathing problems and serious infections after it.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Conditions
Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma

Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system,...

Learn More About Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma
Lymphoma

Lymphoma is a cancer of the lymphocytes, white blood cells that help fight infection. It often starts as a painless swollen...

Learn More About Lymphoma
Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer starts in one of the testicles, most often as a painless lump or swelling. It is most common in men 20 to...

Learn More About Testicular Cancer
Treatments
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Stem Cell Transplants in Cancer Treatment.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/stem-cell-transplant
  2. American Cancer Society. Stem Cell Transplant for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/stem-cell-transplant.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Bone Marrow Transplantation.
    https://medlineplus.gov/bonemarrowtransplantation.html
  4. NMDP. Patients and Caregivers.
    https://www.nmdp.org/patients

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or repairing. It can find cancer that has spread to the bones and other bone problems, and most of the appointment is waiting while the tracer reaches the bones.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has ordered a bone scan, you may be wondering why, and what it could show. A bone scan is often part of the routine tests that help your care team understand the full picture, especially for cancers that can reach the bones. Ordering one does not mean your doctor has found a problem.

A bone scan is a nuclear medicine test. A small amount of a radioactive substance, called a tracer, is injected into a vein. Over a few hours it travels through your blood and collects in your bones, more so in places where bone is breaking down or rebuilding. A special camera then picks up the tracer and makes pictures of your whole skeleton.

Those busy areas can be caused by cancer. They can also be caused by things that are not cancer at all, such as arthritis, an old injury or a healing fracture. That is why a bone scan is read alongside your symptoms and other tests.

This page explains why a bone scan is ordered, how to prepare, what happens on the day, the risks and what your results mean.

What Is a Bone Scan?

Bone is living tissue that is always being broken down and rebuilt. When something affects a bone, such as a tumor, an infection or a fracture, the bone usually reacts by rebuilding faster in that spot. The tracer used in a bone scan is drawn to bone that is rebuilding, so those areas collect more of it.

On the pictures, areas with more tracer look darker or brighter than the bone around them. These are often called hot spots. Areas with less tracer than expected, called cold spots, can also mean something.

A bone scan shows the whole skeleton at once, which makes it useful for checking many bones in a single test. It is very good at finding changes in bone. It is less able to say what caused a change, so other tests often follow.

You may also hear it called bone scintigraphy. Sometimes extra three-dimensional pictures are taken of one area, called SPECT, or the camera is combined with a CT scan to show more detail.

Why a Bone Scan Is Ordered

In cancer care, a bone scan is most often used to:

  • Check whether cancer has spread to the bones. Cancers that commonly spread to bone include breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, kidney and thyroid cancers. Cancer that spreads to bone is described on the bone metastasis page.
  • Help stage a new diagnosis, so the treatment plan fits the full extent of the cancer.
  • Look for the cause of new bone pain in someone who has had cancer.
  • Check how bone areas respond to treatment over time.
  • Look at cancers that start in the bone, such as some types of sarcoma.

Outside cancer care, bone scans can help find hidden fractures, bone infections, arthritis and other bone diseases.

Who Needs One

Not everyone with cancer needs a bone scan. Your doctor decides based on the type and stage of the cancer, your symptoms and your blood tests. For example, a bone scan may be ordered when prostate cancer has a higher chance of spreading, or when someone has new bone pain. For some cancers, such as multiple myeloma (see leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma), other imaging tests show the bone damage better, and your doctor may choose a CT scan, an MRI or a PET-CT scan instead.

How to Prepare

A bone scan needs little preparation, and you can usually eat and take your medicines as normal. Follow the instructions you are given.

  • Tell your care team if you are pregnant, might be pregnant or are breastfeeding.
  • Mention any recent tests that used barium, or medicines that contain bismuth, such as some stomach remedies, since they can affect the pictures.
  • Plan for a long appointment. There is a wait of a few hours between the injection and the scan. You may be able to leave and come back.
  • Wear clothes without metal, and leave jewelry at home.
  • Tell the staff if lying still is painful. They can help you get into a position you can hold.
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What Happens During the Test

The injection. A technologist places a small needle in a vein, usually in your arm, and injects the tracer. You may feel a quick sting. The tracer itself does not make you feel any different.

The wait. It takes about two to four hours for the tracer to collect in your bones. During this time you will be asked to drink extra water and to empty your bladder often, which helps clear tracer that the bones do not take up and makes the pictures clearer.

The scan. You lie on your back on a table while a camera passes slowly close over your body. The camera does not touch you or make noise you need to worry about, and you do not feel anything. Lying still is the main thing asked of you. The scan usually takes 30 to 60 minutes, sometimes longer if extra pictures are needed.

Afterward. You can go back to your normal activities right away. Keep drinking water and emptying your bladder for the rest of the day to help the tracer leave your body.

Risks

A bone scan is a safe, common test.

  • Radiation. The amount of radioactive tracer is small, and most of it leaves your body within a day or two through your urine. Your care team weighs this small exposure against what the scan can show.
  • Pregnancy and breastfeeding. The tracer can reach a developing baby or breast milk, so tell your care team beforehand. You may be told to pause breastfeeding for a short time.
  • The injection. You may have brief soreness or a small bruise where the needle went in. Allergic reactions to the tracer are very rare.

Call your care team the same day for redness, swelling or pain at the injection site that keeps getting worse.

Understanding Your Results

A nuclear medicine doctor or radiologist reads the pictures and sends a report to the doctor who ordered the scan. Your doctor will go over the results with you.

A normal result means the tracer spread evenly through your bones, with no areas of concern.

An abnormal result means one or more areas took up more or less tracer than expected. This is a common finding and is often not cancer. Arthritis, past injuries, healed fractures and other bone conditions can all show up. The pattern and the location of the spots help the doctor judge what is likely.

When a spot needs a closer look, your doctor may order an X-ray, a CT scan, an MRI or a PET-CT scan, and sometimes a biopsy of the bone. If cancer has reached the bone, your care team will explain what it means for your treatment plan, which can include medicines that strengthen bone, radiation to ease pain and treatment for the cancer itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I be radioactive afterward?

A small amount of tracer stays in your body for a short time and leaves mostly through your urine. Your care team will tell you if you need any precautions, such as around young children or someone who is pregnant.

Does a bone scan hurt?

No. For most people, the brief sting of the needle and lying still on the table are the main discomforts.

Can I leave during the wait?

Often, yes. Many people step out for a meal or run errands, as long as they drink water and return on time. Ask the staff on the day.

Does a hot spot mean my cancer has spread?

Not necessarily. Many hot spots come from arthritis or old injuries. Your doctor looks at the pattern and may order other tests before reaching any conclusion.

How is a bone scan different from a bone density scan?

A bone density scan measures how strong your bones are, to check for thinning bones. A bone scan uses a tracer to find areas of bone that are changing, such as where cancer may have spread.

Who Provides It and Where

Bone scans are performed by nuclear medicine technologists and read by nuclear medicine doctors or radiologists. Your cancer care team orders the scan and uses the results to plan your care.

Bone scans are done at Orlando Health imaging locations.

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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
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000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Cancer teams order a bone scan to see whether a cancer has reached the bones and to plan treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Radiology

Nuclear medicine doctors and radiologists inject the tracer, take the pictures and read the whole skeleton.

Learn More About Radiology
Urology

Urologists may order a bone scan when prostate cancer has a higher chance of spreading to bone.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer
Sarcoma

Sarcoma is a rare cancer that starts in the body's connective tissues, such as fat, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, cartilage...

Learn More About Sarcoma
Treatments
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
MUGA Scan

A MUGA scan measures how well your heart pumps blood. A small amount of tracer is added to your blood, and a camera takes...

Learn More About MUGA Scan

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Bone Scan for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/imaging-tests/bone-scan.html
  2. RadiologyInfo.org (Radiological Society of North America and American College of Radiology). Bone Scan (Bone Scintigraphy).
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/bone-scan
  3. MedlinePlus. Bone Scan.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003833.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Bone Metastases.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/metastatic-cancer/bone

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that you or your doctor felt. Most are done with a needle and numbing medicine, and most biopsies find no cancer.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Being told you need a breast biopsy is unsettling, and the wait for results can feel long. It helps to know that a biopsy is a common next step and that most breast biopsies do not find cancer. Imaging can show that an area looks different, but it cannot say for certain what the area is. Looking at the cells under a microscope is the only way to know.

Most breast biopsies today use a thin, hollow needle guided by imaging, so the doctor can reach a spot too small to feel. You stay awake, the breast is numbed, and you go home the same day, usually able to return to most of your normal routine by the next day. A surgical biopsy, which removes a larger piece through a small cut, is needed less often.

If the result does show cancer, the same sample tells your care team a great deal about it, which helps them plan treatment from the start.

What Is a Breast Biopsy?

A breast biopsy removes a small amount of breast tissue, or sometimes fluid, so a pathologist can examine it under a microscope. A pathologist is a doctor who studies cells and tissue to find disease.

Most biopsies are done by a breast radiologist, a doctor who specializes in breast imaging, using a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI to guide the needle to the exact spot. During many needle biopsies, a tiny marker, about the size of a sesame seed, is left in the breast to show where the sample was taken. It is safe to leave in place, and if surgery is needed later, it shows the surgeon where to go.

Kinds of Breast Biopsy

The kind you have depends on what the area looks like, where it is, how big it is and which imaging shows it best.

  • Ultrasound-guided core needle biopsy. Used when the area shows on ultrasound. You lie on your back, and the doctor watches the needle on the screen as it takes several small samples. Often the quickest option, and you lie in an easy position.
  • Stereotactic biopsy. Used for areas seen best on a mammogram, such as tiny calcium deposits called calcifications. Mammogram images taken from two angles pinpoint the spot and guide the needle. The doctor uses local numbing medicine and no sedation. Some centers use 3D mammogram images, called tomosynthesis, to guide it.
  • MRI-guided biopsy. Used when an area shows only on a breast MRI. You lie face down inside the MRI scanner while a breast radiologist guides the needle.
  • Fine needle aspiration. A very thin needle draws out fluid or cells, often from a cyst or a lymph node in the underarm.
  • Surgical biopsy. A surgeon removes all or part of a lump through a small cut, usually in an operating room. It is used when a needle biopsy is not possible or its result needs a closer look.

Why a Breast Biopsy Is Ordered

A biopsy is ordered to find out what an unusual area is: a benign change, a change that raises future risk, or breast cancer. It is ordered when:

  • A screening or diagnostic mammogram shows a mass, calcifications or a distorted area.
  • An ultrasound or MRI finds an area that needs a closer look.
  • You or your doctor feel a new lump or thickening.
  • There is a nipple change, skin change or discharge that imaging cannot explain.
  • A lymph node in the underarm looks unusual.

Who Needs One

Anyone whose imaging or exam shows an area that cannot be called benign by its look alone. A biopsy does not mean your doctor expects cancer. Many areas biopsied turn out to be benign growths such as fibroadenomas, which are common in women in their teens to thirties, or cysts. Some findings that look clearly benign are watched with follow-up imaging instead.

How to Prepare

Tell your care team about blood thinners. This includes aspirin, other prescription blood thinners and some supplements, such as fish oil or vitamin E. You may be told to stop them for a few days before the biopsy, and only your care team can tell you whether that is safe for you.

Tell them about allergies, especially to numbing medicine, and if you might be pregnant or are breastfeeding.

For a stereotactic biopsy, skip deodorant, powder and lotion on your underarms and breasts that day, since they can show up on the images.

Wear a two-piece outfit so you only need to undress from the waist up, and bring a supportive bra to wear afterward.

For an MRI-guided biopsy, tell the team about any metal or devices in your body and whether small spaces make you anxious.

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[Brief description of the resource]

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What Happens During the Test

You change into a gown and lie on a table, on your back for ultrasound, face down for MRI, and face down or seated for a stereotactic biopsy. The doctor cleans the skin and numbs the area with an injection, which stings for a moment. After that, most people feel pressure rather than pain.

The doctor makes a nick in the skin a few millimeters long and guides the needle to the spot with imaging. You may hear a click or a whirring sound as each sample is taken. Several samples are usually collected. A marker may then be placed, and a short mammogram may follow to check its position.

The doctor presses on the area to stop bleeding and closes the nick with a small strip of tape; no stitches are needed. The whole visit usually takes about an hour, much of it positioning. Afterward, an ice pack and a supportive bra ease soreness. Avoid heavy lifting and strenuous exercise for about a day.

Risks

Bruising and soreness are common and fade over a week or two.

Bleeding or a small collection of blood under the skin happens in fewer than 1 in 100 needle biopsies.

Infection is rare.

A sample that does not answer the question. Sometimes the result does not match what the imaging showed, and a repeat or surgical biopsy is needed.

Call your care team the same day for swelling that keeps growing, redness or warmth that spreads, drainage from the site, or a fever.

Understanding Your Results

Results usually take a few business days. A radiologist or the doctor who ordered the biopsy calls you or reviews them at a visit. The pathology report places the sample in one of three groups:

Benign. No cancer. Your doctor checks that this fits the imaging and tells you when to have your next mammogram or follow-up scan.

Atypical or high risk. Changes that are not cancer but raise the chance of cancer later, such as atypical hyperplasia. Your doctor may suggest removing the area with surgery, closer screening or a visit with a breast specialist.

Cancer. The report names the kind of cancer and tests it for hormone receptors and a protein called HER2. These features guide treatment. You will usually meet a breast surgeon, an oncologist or a nurse navigator soon after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a biopsy mean my doctor thinks I have cancer?

No. A biopsy is how your doctor finds out. Most breast biopsies show no cancer.

Does a breast biopsy hurt?

The numbing shot stings briefly. After that, most people feel pressure. The area may be sore and bruised for a few days.

Can a biopsy spread cancer?

No. There is no good evidence that a needle biopsy causes cancer to spread.

Will the marker set off airport scanners or affect an MRI?

No. The marker is very small and made of materials that are safe in an MRI and do not set off metal detectors.

Can I go back to work the same day?

Most people can return to desk work the same or next day. Avoid heavy lifting and hard exercise for about a day.

Who Provides It and Where

Breast biopsies are performed by breast radiologists, and surgical biopsies by breast surgeons. Find a doctor to see who performs breast biopsy near you.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its breast imaging team performs image-guided biopsies. Before surgery, a tiny reflector can be placed in the tumor so the surgeon can find it with wire-free radar localization, called SCOUT.

Orlando Health imaging services also perform stereotactic biopsy and MRI-guided breast biopsy, the latter by a fellowship-trained breast radiologist.

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Cancer

When a breast biopsy finds cancer, the cancer team plans what comes next with you.

Learn More About Cancer
Radiology

Radiologists guide most breast biopsies with ultrasound, mammogram or MRI so the needle reaches the right spot.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Treatments
Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes...

Learn More About Mammogram
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average...

Learn More About Breast Cancer Screening
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

Learn More About Breast Reconstruction
Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep...

Learn More About Lumpectomy
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Breast Biopsy.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/screening-tests-and-early-detection/breast-biopsy.html
  2. RadiologyInfo.org (Radiological Society of North America and American College of Radiology). Ultrasound-Guided Breast Biopsy.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/breastbius
  3. National Cancer Institute. Breast Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-treatment-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average risk start at age 40. Your age, family history and breast density decide how often you go and whether you need more than a mammogram.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Screening is a check for people who feel fine. Its purpose is to find breast cancer when it is small and has not spread, when treatment is simplest and works best. Many cancers found this way are too small to feel.

For most women, screening means a mammogram every one or two years starting at age 40. Some women need more: a yearly mammogram from a younger age, or a breast MRI added to it, because of their genes, their family history or radiation to the chest when they were young. Women with dense breasts may be offered added imaging as well.

The groups that write screening guidelines agree on the most important point: start in your 40s and keep going. They differ on details such as whether to go every year or every other year, so the best plan is one you make with your doctor, based on your own risk. This page explains the options, what to expect and what your results mean.

What Is a Breast Cancer Screening?

A breast cancer screening is a test done on a regular schedule in people with no breast symptoms. It differs from a diagnostic exam, which is done to check a lump, pain, nipple discharge or another change you have noticed. If you have a symptom, tell your doctor or the technologist before your appointment, because you may need a diagnostic mammogram or ultrasound instead.

Mammograms lower the chance of dying from breast cancer. No test finds every cancer, so knowing how your breasts normally look and feel, and reporting changes, matters even with a recent normal mammogram.

Kinds of Breast Cancer Screening

  • Mammogram. An X-ray of the breast and the main screening test. Most centers now use 3D mammography, also called digital breast tomosynthesis, which takes a series of thin images through the breast. It finds more cancers and leads to fewer callbacks for findings that turn out to be normal.
  • Breast MRI. Uses magnets and a contrast dye, with no radiation. It is added to a yearly mammogram for women at high risk. It is very sensitive and also finds more areas that turn out not to be cancer, so it is not used for women at average risk.
  • Breast ultrasound. Uses sound waves. It is sometimes added for women with dense breasts and is often used to look more closely at an area found on a mammogram.
  • Clinical breast exam. A doctor or nurse feels the breasts and underarms. It may be part of a routine checkup.

Why a Breast Cancer Screening Is Ordered

Screening finds cancer early, often years before it could be felt. Cancers found early are usually smaller and less likely to have spread, and they more often need less treatment. Regular screening is a simple step toward finding breast cancer early.

Who Needs One

Women at average risk, meaning no personal history of breast cancer, no known gene change that raises risk, no strong family history and no chest radiation before age 30:

  • The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a mammogram every two years from age 40 to 74.
  • The American Cancer Society says women 40 to 44 may choose to start yearly mammograms, women 45 to 54 should have one every year, and women 55 and older can switch to every two years or keep going yearly.
  • Screening continues as long as you are in good health and expected to live at least 10 more years.

Women at higher risk, including those with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene change, a parent, sibling or child with one, a lifetime risk of about 20 percent or more, or chest radiation between ages 10 and 30, are usually advised to have a mammogram and a breast MRI every year, often starting at age 30. By age 30, it is worth asking your doctor to assess your risk. Genetic counseling can help if your family history is strong.

Men do not have routine screening, and transgender people should ask their doctor about a plan that fits their history and hormone use.

How to Prepare

  • Schedule after your period, if you still have periods, when breasts are least tender.
  • Skip deodorant, antiperspirant, powder and lotion on your breasts and underarms that day. They can show up as white spots on the images.
  • Wear a two-piece outfit so you only undress from the waist up.
  • Bring the dates and places of earlier mammograms, so the radiologist can compare images.
  • Tell the technologist about breast symptoms, implants, past surgery or a chance you might be pregnant.

At Orlando Health imaging locations, a screening mammogram needs no order from a doctor; a diagnostic mammogram does.

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What Happens During the Test

You stand in front of the mammogram machine. A technologist places one breast at a time on a flat plate, and a second plate presses down to flatten it for a few seconds while the images are taken. Most people feel firm pressure, and some find it painful for a moment. Two views of each breast are usual. If you have implants, the technologist takes extra views and moves the implant aside.

The appointment often takes as little as 20 minutes. A breast MRI takes longer: you lie face down with your breasts in openings in the table, and contrast dye is given through a vein.

Risks

Callbacks and false alarms. About 1 in 10 women are called back for more imaging after a screening mammogram, and most of them do not have cancer. Waiting can be stressful, and some need a biopsy that turns out benign.

Missed cancers. Mammograms miss some cancers, more often in dense breasts.

Overdiagnosis. Some cancers found by screening would never have caused harm, and treating them brings side effects.

Radiation. A mammogram uses a very low dose of radiation. Its benefits outweigh this small risk for women of screening age.

Understanding Your Results

A radiologist reads your images, and your results go to you and your doctor, usually within a few days. Results come with a category from 0 to 6. Most are normal or benign, and you go back on your usual schedule. A result needing more imaging means a closer look at an area, often with a diagnostic mammogram or ultrasound. If an area still looks unusual, a breast biopsy is the next step.

Your report also says whether your breasts are dense. Dense breast tissue is common, can hide cancers and slightly raises risk, so ask your doctor whether added imaging such as ultrasound or MRI makes sense for you.

Frequently Asked Questions

At what age should I start mammograms?

For women at average risk, at age 40. Women at higher risk often start earlier, sometimes at 30, with added MRI. Ask your doctor about your risk.

Every year or every two years?

Both are within current guidelines for women at average risk. Yearly screening finds slightly more cancers and leads to more callbacks. Talk with your doctor about which fits you.

Do I need a mammogram if no one in my family had breast cancer?

Yes. Most women diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history of it.

Will my insurance cover it?

Most insurance plans cover a screening mammogram. Check your plan's benefits before you schedule.

Can I get a mammogram with breast implants?

Yes. Tell the technologist about your implants. They take extra views to see as much breast tissue as possible.

Who Provides It and Where

Screening is usually ordered or recommended by a primary care doctor or gynecologist, and the images are read by breast radiologists. Find a doctor to see who provides breast cancer screening near you.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Breast Care Center's breast imaging team provides screening mammograms, ultrasound and MRI with 3D mammography, and its genetic counselors see women at higher risk. Orlando Health imaging locations, including the Women's Pavilion in Winter Park, offer screening mammograms with lunchtime and later appointment times at select locations.
  • Orlando Health Bayfront women's health. Screening and diagnostic 3D mammograms with same-day or next-day availability and a personal navigator to guide each patient through testing and follow-up. Call (727) 553-7801.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Radiology

Radiologists read screening mammograms and call you back when a closer look is needed.

Learn More About Radiology
Women's

Women's care doctors help you decide when to start breast screening and how often to repeat it.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Treatments
Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes...

Learn More About Mammogram
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

Learn More About Breast Reconstruction
Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep...

Learn More About Lumpectomy
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Breast Cancer: Screening (2024).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/breast-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. Guidelines for the Early Detection of Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/screening/american-cancer-society-guidelines-for-the-early-detection-of-cancer.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Breast Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-screening-pdq
  4. MedlinePlus. Mammography.
    https://medlineplus.gov/mammography.html

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant, tissue from your own body or both. It can happen at the same time as cancer surgery or months or years later, and whether to have it is your choice.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you are facing breast cancer surgery, reconstruction may be one more decision on a long list, and it can feel like a lot at once. It helps to know that there is no single right answer. Some people want reconstruction at the same operation as their mastectomy, some wait until other treatment is finished, and some decide to stay flat. Each of these is a sound choice.

Reconstruction rebuilds the shape, size and contour of the breast. It can also reshape the breast after a lumpectomy, balance the other breast so the two match, and restore a nipple and areola. Newer techniques can bring back some feeling to the skin of the new breast.

The best plan comes from your breast surgeon and a plastic surgeon working together from the start, so your reconstruction fits around the rest of your treatment. This page explains the main kinds of reconstruction, how timing works, what recovery is like and what results to expect.

What Is Breast Reconstruction?

Breast reconstruction is a set of operations done by a plastic surgeon to recreate a breast after cancer surgery. It may be immediate, starting right after the mastectomy while you are still asleep, or delayed, done months or years later. Many reconstructions happen in stages, with a first operation to build the breast and one or more shorter procedures later to fine-tune its shape and match the other side.

Timing often depends on other treatment. Radiation therapy can change how the skin and tissue heal, so your team plans the order of each step with radiation in mind.

Kinds of Breast Reconstruction

  • Implant reconstruction. A saline or silicone implant forms the new breast. Often a tissue expander, a temporary balloon-like device, is placed first and filled a little at a time over several weeks to stretch the skin, then swapped for the implant a few months later. The implant may be placed above or below the chest muscle. The operations are shorter, often an hour or two, and many people go home the same day.
  • Tissue reconstruction, also called flap reconstruction. The surgeon moves skin, fat and sometimes muscle from another part of your body, most often the belly, to build the breast. In a DIEP flap, tissue from the lower belly is moved without taking the muscle, and its small blood vessels are reconnected under a microscope. The surgery is longer, with a hospital stay of a few days, and the result feels much like natural breast tissue.
  • Combined reconstruction. An implant and your own tissue are used together.
  • Oncoplastic surgery. After a lumpectomy, the surgeon rearranges the remaining breast tissue, or lifts or reduces the breast, so it keeps a natural shape. This is usually done at the time of the lumpectomy, before radiation.
  • Fat grafting. Fat taken by liposuction from another area is used to smooth or fill out the breast.
  • Nipple and areola reconstruction. A nipple can be rebuilt from skin on the new breast, or a medical tattoo can create the look of a nipple and areola.

Why Breast Reconstruction Is Performed

People choose reconstruction to feel whole after cancer surgery, to fit clothing and swimwear without a breast form, and to see a familiar shape in the mirror. Reconstruction is used after:

  • A mastectomy for breast cancer, on one side or both.
  • A preventive mastectomy for people with an inherited risk, such as a BRCA gene change. Genetic counseling can help with that decision.
  • A lumpectomy that would leave a dent or uneven breasts.

Choosing to stay flat, with or without a breast form, is also a choice your team fully supports.

Who Is a Candidate

Most people who have breast cancer surgery can have some form of reconstruction. Your plastic surgeon looks at your overall health, your body shape, whether you will need radiation and what you want. Smoking, diabetes and some other conditions raise the chance of healing problems, and a very thin body may leave too little tissue for a flap. Before a DIEP flap, a CT scan maps the blood vessels in your belly.

How to Prepare

  • Meet the plastic surgeon early, ideally before your cancer surgery, so you know all your options.
  • Stop smoking and vaping well ahead of surgery, since nicotine slows healing.
  • Review your medicines, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • Follow eating and drinking instructions for the day of surgery.
  • Plan for help at home for the first one to two weeks, and longer after a flap, with a ride home and someone to help with drains and lifting.
  • Bring front-opening tops and the surgical bra your team recommends.
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[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

You are under general anesthesia. In an immediate reconstruction, the breast surgeon removes the breast tissue and the plastic surgeon then places an expander or implant, or builds the breast from your own tissue. An implant operation usually takes one to two hours. A flap can take many hours, because the surgeon moves the tissue and reconnects its blood vessels. Some surgeons also reconnect nerves, a technique called neurotization, to help bring back some feeling.

After the Procedure

After an implant or expander, many people go home the same day or the next day. After a flap, the hospital stay is usually about three days, and nurses check the color and warmth of the new breast often. Most people go home with drains, small tubes that collect fluid, which stay in place for about one to two weeks.

Recovery

Recovery after an implant takes a few weeks. Recovery after a flap is longer, often six to eight weeks, because there are two healing areas: the new breast and the place the tissue came from. If you have an expander, you return to the office for fills over several weeks before the next stage. Lifting and reaching overhead are limited at first, and your team will tell you when to resume each activity.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing or bleeding that will not stop. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness or warmth that spreads across the breast, drainage from an incision, a breast that swells or turns firm on one side, or a change in the color of the new breast.

Risks and Complications

Reconstruction is generally safe, and your surgeon works to lower each risk. They include:

  • Infection, bleeding and fluid buildup under the skin.
  • Slow healing of the incisions or the breast skin.
  • Loss of part or all of a flap, which is uncommon.
  • Implant problems, such as scar tissue that tightens around the implant, a leak or a shift in position, any of which can mean another operation.
  • Changes where tissue was taken, such as weakness or a bulge in the belly after some flaps.
  • Uneven breasts that need a later adjustment.
  • Changes in feeling in the breast and nipple area.
  • A rare lymphoma linked mainly to textured implants, which your surgeon can discuss with you.

Results of Breast Reconstruction

Reconstruction rebuilds a breast shape that looks natural in clothing and, for many people, out of it. A reconstructed breast will not match a natural breast exactly, and tissue reconstruction tends to change with your body over time much as a natural breast does. Implants do not last a lifetime and may need to be replaced, often after 10 to 20 years. Feeling in the breast is often reduced, and newer nerve techniques can restore some of it. Most people need one or more smaller procedures to perfect the result.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does insurance cover breast reconstruction?

A federal law, the Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act, requires most health plans that cover a mastectomy to also cover reconstruction, including surgery on the other breast to match. Check your own plan's details.

Will reconstruction make it harder to find cancer later?

Your care team can still check the area for changes after reconstruction, and your doctor will explain which follow-up exams or imaging you need.

Can I have reconstruction if I need radiation?

Yes. Radiation can affect the timing and the type, so your plastic surgeon plans around it. Some people have an expander during radiation and finish later.

Will I have feeling in my new breast?

Feeling is usually reduced. Some sensation often returns over time, and nerve reconnection during surgery can help restore more.

How long do I have to decide?

There is no deadline. You can decide before your cancer surgery or years afterward.

Who Provides It and Where

Breast reconstruction is performed by plastic and reconstructive surgeons, including microsurgeons for flap reconstruction, working with breast surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. The Breast Care Center works with the Orlando Health Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute, so breast surgeons and plastic surgeons plan surgery and reconstruction together, including tissue reconstruction and techniques to preserve sensation.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health General Surgery. Breast surgeons at Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health offices in the Tampa Bay area, including Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills, work with Florida Medical Clinic cosmetic and plastic surgeons on immediate or delayed reconstruction.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons rebuild the breast with an implant or your own tissue, at the time of a mastectomy or later.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Your breast surgeon and plastic surgeon plan reconstruction around your cancer treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Treatments
Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk...

Learn More About Mastectomy
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep...

Learn More About Lumpectomy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average...

Learn More About Breast Cancer Screening

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Breast Reconstruction Surgery.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/reconstruction-surgery.html
  2. National Cancer Institute. Breast Reconstruction After Mastectomy.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/reconstruction-fact-sheet
  3. MedlinePlus. Breast reconstruction, implants.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007372.htm
  4. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Risks and Complications of Breast Implants.
    https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/breast-implants/risks-and-complications-breast-implants
  5. U.S. Department of Labor. Your Rights After a Mastectomy: Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act.
    https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ebsa/about-ebsa/our-activities/resource-center/publications/your-rights-after-a-mastectomy

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer treatment. Physical, occupational and speech therapists work with you on tiredness, weakness, pain, swelling, swallowing and the everyday tasks that cancer and its treatment can make harder.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Cancer and its treatment can change what your body is able to do. Surgery can leave a shoulder stiff or an arm swollen. Chemotherapy can cause numbness in the hands and feet and a tiredness that sleep does not fix. Radiation to the head and neck can make it hard to open your mouth or swallow. Many people notice these changes and assume they simply have to live with them.

Cancer rehabilitation exists for exactly these problems. It is care from licensed therapists who understand cancer treatment and its effects, with a plan built around your diagnosis, your treatment and the activities that matter to you, whether that is going back to work, lifting a grandchild or walking the dog.

Rehabilitation can start before treatment, a step called prehabilitation, and continue through treatment and long after it ends. Starting early can help you go into treatment stronger and catch problems while they are easier to treat. This page explains what cancer rehabilitation is, who it helps, how to start and what a visit is like.

What Is Cancer Rehabilitation and How Does It Work?

Cancer rehabilitation is a group of therapies that treat the physical and functional effects of cancer and its treatment. A therapist first measures where you are: your strength, balance, range of motion, endurance, swelling, speech or swallowing, and how you manage at home and work. Together you set goals, and the therapist builds a plan of exercises, hands-on treatment and practical strategies to reach them.

It works by keeping muscles, joints and the lymph system moving and by retraining the body after an injury from surgery, radiation or medicines. Regular, safe exercise during and after treatment helps with tiredness, strength and mood, and studies show that people who are more active before and during treatment tend to recover better and have fewer problems with pain, fatigue and loss of function.

Rehabilitation is part of your cancer care. Your therapists stay in touch with your oncologists and adjust the plan as your treatment changes.

Kinds of Cancer Rehabilitation

  • Physical therapy improves mobility, strength, balance and endurance, and includes a monitored exercise program.
  • Occupational therapy focuses on daily life at home, at work and in leisure: dressing, cooking, managing energy, and tasks that are less demanding on your body.
  • Speech and language therapy helps with speaking, voice and swallowing, often after treatment for head and neck cancers or brain tumors.
  • Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area after lymph nodes are removed or treated.
  • Head and neck therapy prevents and treats trismus, a tightening of the jaw that makes it hard to open the mouth.
  • Breast cancer rehabilitation restores shoulder and arm movement after surgery and treats cording, tight bands under the skin of the arm.
  • Prehabilitation builds heart and muscle strength in the weeks before surgery or other treatment.

What Cancer Rehabilitation Is Used For

Rehabilitation can help with:

  • Tiredness that lasts through or after treatment.
  • Weakness, poor balance or falls, including after a long hospital stay.
  • Stiffness and limited movement, such as a tight shoulder after breast cancer surgery or pain after a mastectomy (post-mastectomy pain).
  • Swelling in an arm or leg from lymphedema.
  • Numbness, tingling or pain in the hands and feet from chemotherapy nerve damage.
  • Trouble swallowing, speaking or opening the mouth after head and neck treatment.
  • Changes in thinking, movement or speech from a brain or spine tumor.
  • Cancer pain and weakened bones, with safe ways to move.
  • Pelvic floor problems, such as leaking urine after treatment for prostate or gynecologic cancers.

It also helps caregivers, who learn safe lifting and body mechanics so they can help without injuring themselves.

Before You Start

A referral. Ask your oncologist, surgeon or nurse navigator for a referral. Many people can start at diagnosis, before treatment begins. Check with your insurance plan about therapy visits.

Your first evaluation. The therapist asks about your cancer, your treatment plan and your goals, then measures your strength, movement, balance and endurance. If you are at risk of lymphedema, they may take baseline measurements of your arms or legs to compare against later.

Tell your therapist about low blood counts, bone that cancer has weakened, a port or drain, recent surgery, numbness, dizziness and any pain. These shape which exercises are safe for you.

Bring loose clothes and walking shoes, a list of your medicines and a family member if they help with your care.

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What to Expect

Your visits. A session usually lasts 45 minutes to an hour, often once or twice a week. Sessions mix exercise, hands-on treatment such as stretching or lymphatic massage, and teaching you what to do at home.

Your home program. Most of the progress happens between visits. Your therapist gives you exercises sized to your energy that day and shows you how to step them up or down as treatment goes on. A goal for many people is about 30 minutes of moderate activity on most days, with light strength training twice a week, reached gradually.

As treatment changes. Your plan adapts when you start chemotherapy or radiation, have surgery or finish treatment. On harder days, the goal may simply be to keep moving.

After treatment. When you can manage on your own, your therapist helps you move to an ongoing routine, which may include a community exercise program for people after cancer.

Call your care team the same day for new swelling in an arm or leg, a red, warm or painful area of swelling, or new pain in a bone. Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain, trouble breathing, fainting, or new weakness or numbness in your legs.

Side Effects and Risks

Cancer rehabilitation is safe for most people when it is planned around your treatment and health.

  • Muscle soreness and tiredness after a session, which usually ease within a day or two.
  • A higher chance of injury when bones are weakened by cancer, blood counts are low or balance is poor. Your therapist adjusts exercises to protect you.
  • Swelling that changes with activity, which your lymphedema therapist will watch.

Stop and tell your therapist about dizziness, unusual shortness of breath or sudden pain during exercise.

Benefits: What It Can Do

Rehabilitation can help you stay stronger through treatment, recover function faster afterward and return to the activities that matter to you. It can ease tiredness, pain and swelling, improve balance, swallowing and speech, and lower the chance of falls. Many people also find it lifts their mood and confidence. What it can do for you depends on your cancer, your treatment and your goals, and your therapist will track your progress with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I start rehabilitation?

The earlier the better. Starting at diagnosis lets your therapist record a baseline and prepare you for treatment.

Is it safe to exercise during chemotherapy or radiation?

For most people, yes, with a plan sized to your energy and blood counts. Your therapist and oncologist will tell you what is safe.

I finished treatment years ago. Can rehabilitation still help?

Yes. Late effects such as stiffness, swelling or nerve pain can be treated long after treatment ends.

Does insurance cover cancer rehabilitation?

Many plans cover physical, occupational and speech therapy with a referral, sometimes with a limit on visits. Check your plan before you start.

Can my caregiver come to sessions?

Yes. Therapists often teach caregivers safe ways to help with lifting, moving and home exercises.

Who Provides It and Where

Cancer rehabilitation is given by physical, occupational and speech therapists, including certified lymphedema therapists, working with your cancer care team.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its support services include cancer rehabilitation through the Orlando Health Rehabilitation Institute, for people who have been diagnosed with, are living with or are surviving cancer, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida. For information, call 1-844-458-1566.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Yoga, meditation and other supportive therapies that complement rehabilitation during and after treatment.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Advanced Rehabilitation

Physical, occupational and speech therapists treat weakness, stiffness, swallowing trouble and swelling after cancer.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Cancer

Oncologists and nurse navigators refer patients to rehab before, during and after treatment to keep strength and function.

Learn More About Cancer
Pain Management

Pain specialists work with therapists on nerve pain and post-surgical pain so people can move and exercise safely.

Learn More About Pain Management
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

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Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

Learn More About Cancer Pain
Treatments
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

Learn More About Lymphedema Therapy
Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk...

Learn More About Mastectomy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

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Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often the main treatment for cancers that have not spread, and it is usually planned with chemotherapy, radiation or other treatment. Many operations are done through small incisions.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has said you need surgery for cancer, you may be thinking about the operation itself, the recovery, and whether it will remove all of the cancer. Those are the right questions to bring to your surgeon. Surgery has treated cancer for a long time, and for many cancers found before they spread, it offers a strong chance of a cure.

Cancer surgery is planned differently from other operations. Surgeons who specialize in cancer, called surgical oncologists, work alongside medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists and pathologists. Together they decide whether surgery should come first or after other treatment, and how much tissue to remove.

Many operations today are done through small incisions with a camera, sometimes with a robotic system, which can mean less pain and a shorter recovery. Others need a traditional open incision. This page explains the kinds of cancer surgery, the reasons for it, how to prepare and what recovery looks like. Pages on specific operations, such as a mastectomy or a colectomy, go into detail.

What Is Cancer Surgery?

Cancer surgery is any operation used to find, stage, treat or relieve cancer. When the goal is to remove a tumor, the surgeon takes out the tumor with a rim of normal tissue around it, called a margin. A pathologist then examines the tissue to confirm the type of cancer and check whether the margins are clear of cancer cells.

Surgeons often remove nearby lymph nodes too, because cancer can spread through them first. Checking the nodes helps stage the cancer and guides the next steps. See lymph node removal.

Kinds of Cancer Surgery

By its purpose:

  • Diagnostic surgery removes tissue to find out whether a growth is cancer. See biopsy.
  • Staging surgery shows how far a cancer has spread, often by removing lymph nodes.
  • Curative surgery removes the whole tumor when it is in one place.
  • Debulking surgery removes as much of a tumor as is safe when all of it cannot be removed, so other treatments work better. See HIPEC.
  • Palliative surgery eases pain, a blockage or bleeding caused by cancer.
  • Preventive surgery removes tissue with a high chance of becoming cancer, for people with an inherited risk.
  • Reconstructive surgery restores the look or function of the body, such as breast reconstruction.

By its approach:

  • Open surgery through one larger incision.
  • Minimally invasive surgery through several small incisions with a camera. See minimally invasive surgery and laparoscopic surgery.
  • Robotic surgery, in which the surgeon controls the instruments from a console. See robotic surgery.
  • Treatments without an incision, such as tumor ablation, which destroys a tumor with heat or cold.

Why Cancer Surgery Is Performed

Surgery is used for many solid tumors, such as cancers of the breast, colon, lung, skin, pancreas and prostate. It is usually combined with other treatment. Chemotherapy or radiation may come first to shrink a tumor, which is called neoadjuvant treatment, or after surgery to lower the chance of the cancer returning, called adjuvant treatment.

Who Is a Candidate

Your care team weighs the type, size and stage of your cancer, where it is, and your overall health and wishes. Surgery is usually not the main treatment for blood cancers such as leukemia, or for cancer that has spread widely, though it may still help with symptoms. Your surgeon will explain what surgery can and cannot do for you, and you decide together.

How to Prepare

  • Prehabilitation. Walking and other activity in the weeks before surgery can make you stronger for the operation and help you recover. Ask whether a cancer rehabilitation program is right for you.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners, supplements and over-the-counter medicines, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Smoking and alcohol. Quitting smoking and avoiding alcohol before surgery help healing.
  • Eating well. Good nutrition supports recovery. A dietitian can help if you have lost weight.
  • Tests. You may have blood tests, imaging and a heart or lung check before surgery.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and someone to help during the first days.

Your surgical team will give you written instructions that fit your operation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

Most cancer operations are done under general anesthesia, so you are asleep. Some smaller procedures use local anesthesia with medicine to help you relax. The surgeon removes the tumor and any lymph nodes needed, and the tissue goes to the pathologist. Length depends on the operation, from under an hour to many hours.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area where nurses check your breathing, pain and vital signs. Some people go home the same day; after a larger operation, you may stay several days. You will be encouraged to walk early, which helps prevent blood clots and pneumonia.

Recovery

Recovery depends on the operation. Expect some pain, tiredness and limits on lifting for a few weeks; your team will help control pain with medicine and other methods. Your surgeon reviews the pathology results with you, usually within one to two weeks, and these results guide whether you need more treatment. Some people have lingering pain where tissue was removed; tell your team so it can be treated.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, bleeding that will not stop, vomiting blood or black, tarry stools, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, swelling or drainage at an incision, pain that is getting worse, pain and swelling in one leg, or vomiting that keeps you from drinking.

Risks and Complications

The risks depend on the operation and your health. They can include:

  • Pain at the surgery site.
  • Bleeding and infection.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs.
  • Reactions to anesthesia.
  • Damage to nearby organs, nerves or blood vessels.
  • Changes in how part of the body works, such as swelling of an arm or leg after lymph nodes are removed, called lymphedema. See lymphedema therapy.
  • Slow healing, especially after radiation or chemotherapy, or with diabetes or smoking.

Your surgeon will talk through the risks of your operation and how they are lowered.

Results of Cancer Surgery

The pathology report tells you whether the tumor was removed with clear margins and whether cancer was found in the lymph nodes. Clear margins and nodes without cancer often mean surgery has removed all the cancer that can be seen, and the team may recommend follow-up visits or more treatment to lower the chance of a return. If cancer cells reach a margin, your team may advise more surgery, radiation or medicines. You will have regular follow-up visits and scans.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will surgery remove all of my cancer?

For many cancers found early, surgery removes all the cancer that can be seen. The pathology report shows whether the margins and lymph nodes are clear, and your team uses it to decide whether you need more treatment.

Why might I have chemotherapy or radiation before surgery?

Treatment before surgery can shrink a tumor, so the operation is smaller or more likely to remove it completely. It also shows how the cancer responds to medicines.

Can surgery spread cancer?

Surgeons follow careful steps to prevent this, such as removing the tumor in one piece and handling it as little as possible. It is a rare concern, and you can ask your surgeon about it.

Should I get a second opinion?

Many people do, especially before a major operation. It is a normal part of cancer care, and your surgeon will not be offended.

How do I manage pain after cancer surgery?

Your team will give you a pain plan before you leave, often combining medicines with walking, ice or heat. Tell your team if pain is not controlled or returns weeks later.

Who Provides It and Where

Cancer surgery is performed by surgical oncologists and by surgeons who specialize in one area of the body, working with medical and radiation oncologists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Surgical, medical and radiation oncologists who plan your care around your type of cancer, with nurse navigators and survivorship care. Its general surgical oncologists remove tumors, perform biopsies and lymph node procedures, and help stage cancer, using robotic techniques for some operations.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Surgeons who operate on cancers of the colon, rectum, liver, bile ducts, pancreas and stomach, through small incisions when they can, some with robotic help.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health General Surgery. Surgical oncologists who plan surgery with medical and radiation oncologists and offer minimally invasive and robotic surgery, diagnostic biopsies and traditional open surgery.

Care is given at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida and the Tampa Bay area.

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[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
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Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Reconstructive surgeons restore the breast, face or other areas after a tumor is removed.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Surgical oncologists remove tumors and lymph nodes and plan surgery with chemotherapy and radiation.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists check the removed tissue for clear margins and cancer in the lymph nodes, guiding next steps.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

Learn More About Gallbladder Cancer
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

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Treatments
Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk...

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Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon...

Learn More About HIPEC
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Surgery to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/surgery
  2. American Cancer Society. Cancer Surgery.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/surgery.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/cancer.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become cancer. Most people start at 21 or 25 and are tested every three to five years until 65.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers. It grows slowly, usually over many years, and it almost always starts with a long-lasting infection with certain types of human papillomavirus (HPV). Before cancer forms, the cells of the cervix go through changes that a screening test can find. Those changes can then be watched or treated, so cancer never has the chance to develop.

Since the Pap test came into wide use, deaths from cervical cancer in the United States have fallen sharply. Most cervical cancers today are found in people who have not been screened regularly, or who have not been screened at all.

A screening visit takes only a few minutes. The cells are collected during a pelvic exam, and the results come back to you within one to three weeks. For most people with normal results, the next test is three or five years away.

This page explains the tests, who should be screened and how often, how to prepare and what your results mean.

What Is a Cervical Cancer Screening?

The cervix is the lower, narrow end of the uterus that opens into the vagina. A cervical cancer screening collects a small sample of cells from the cervix and checks them in a lab for cervical cancer, for the cell changes that come before it, or for the HPV types that cause it.

Screening is for people who feel well and have no symptoms. If you have bleeding between periods, bleeding after sex or after menopause, pelvic pain or unusual discharge, see your doctor. Those symptoms call for an exam to find their cause, whatever your screening schedule says.

Kinds of Cervical Cancer Screening Tests

Three tests are used, and all three can be done from the same sample.

TestWhat it looks forHow often, with normal results
Pap test (Pap smear)Abnormal cells on the cervixEvery 3 years
Primary HPV testThe high-risk HPV types that cause most cervical cancersEvery 5 years
Co-test (Pap and HPV together)Both abnormal cells and high-risk HPVEvery 5 years

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a Pap test every three years from 21 to 29. From 30 to 65, any of the three tests is a good choice. The American Cancer Society prefers a primary HPV test every five years from age 25, and accepts the co-test or a Pap test alone where an HPV test is not available. Your doctor will help you choose the schedule that fits you.

Self-collected HPV testing. Some offices now offer an HPV test in which you collect the sample yourself with a soft swab, in private, instead of having a pelvic exam. Ask whether it is an option for you.

Why a Cervical Cancer Screening Is Ordered

Screening does two things. It finds cell changes early, so they can be treated before they become cancer. And when cancer has already formed, it finds it at an early stage, when treatment works best and is most likely to cure it.

Who Needs One

Most people with a cervix, from age 21 or 25 to age 65. That includes transgender men and nonbinary people who have a cervix. Screening is advised whether or not you have had the HPV vaccine, because the vaccine does not cover every HPV type that can cause cancer.

You may need screening more often, or past 65, if you:

  • Have had cervical cancer or a high-grade precancer
  • Have HIV, an organ transplant or another condition that weakens the immune system
  • Were exposed before birth to the medicine diethylstilbestrol (DES)

You may be able to stop screening if you are over 65 and have had several normal results in a row over the past 10 years, with no history of a high-grade precancer. You may also not need it if you have had a total hysterectomy, which removed your uterus and cervix, for a reason other than cancer or precancer. Ask your doctor before you stop.

How to Prepare

  • Schedule around your period. Try to book the test for a day when you are not bleeding. If your period starts, call and ask whether to keep the appointment.
  • For two days before the test, avoid douching, vaginal creams or medicines, spermicide and vaginal sex, since they can wash away or hide abnormal cells.
  • Tell your doctor if you are pregnant, have had abnormal results before or have had a hysterectomy.
  • Check your coverage. Most insurance plans cover cervical cancer screening as preventive care. Confirm your benefits before your visit.
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[Brief description of the resource]

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What Happens During the Test

The test is usually done during a pelvic exam at your doctor's office. You lie on an exam table with your knees bent and your feet resting in supports. Your doctor places a speculum, a smooth instrument that holds the walls of the vagina open, so the cervix can be seen.

Using a small brush or spatula, your doctor takes a sample of cells from the surface of the cervix. You may feel pressure or a brief cramp. The sample goes to a lab for a Pap test, an HPV test or both. Collecting the sample takes a minute or two, and you can return to your usual activities right away.

If you are self-collecting an HPV sample, you will be shown how to place the swab in your vagina, turn it and seal it in its container.

Tell your doctor if you feel tense or uncomfortable. Slow breathing helps the muscles relax, and you can ask to stop at any time.

Risks

Cervical cancer screening is very safe. Some people have light spotting for a day afterward. Call your doctor the same day for heavy bleeding, pain that does not ease, or a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher in the days after the test.

Like every screening test, it is not perfect. A test can occasionally miss changes, which is one reason screening is repeated on a schedule. A test can also show changes that would have gone away on their own, which can lead to more testing. The schedules above are set to find the changes that matter while limiting extra tests.

Understanding Your Results

Results usually come back within one to three weeks.

  • Normal (negative). No abnormal cells and no high-risk HPV were found. You return on your regular schedule.
  • HPV positive with a normal Pap test. HPV is very common, and most infections clear on their own within a year or two. Your doctor may repeat testing in a year or check the HPV type.
  • Abnormal cells. Pap results may be described as ASC-US, LSIL, HSIL or AGC. These terms describe how the cells look, from mild changes to more serious ones. An abnormal result rarely means cancer.
  • Follow-up. Depending on your results and history, you may need a repeat test or a colposcopy, an exam that uses a magnifying instrument to look closely at the cervix. A small sample may be taken during it for a biopsy.

When a precancer is found, it can usually be removed in a short office or outpatient procedure that takes away the abnormal area. Your doctor will explain your result and the next step.

Frequently Asked Questions

At what age should I start?

At 21 for a Pap test every three years, following the Task Force. The American Cancer Society suggests starting at 25 with an HPV test every five years. Your doctor can help you choose.

I got the HPV vaccine. Do I still need screening?

Yes. The vaccine prevents most of the HPV types that cause cancer, but not all of them, so screening is still recommended on the same schedule.

Is a Pap test the same as a pelvic exam?

No. A pelvic exam checks your reproductive organs by sight and touch. A Pap test collects cells from the cervix, usually during a pelvic exam, and sends them to a lab.

Does a positive HPV test mean I will get cancer?

No. Most people have HPV at some point, and the body usually clears it. A positive result means you need closer follow-up, so any changes are found early.

Do I need screening after menopause?

Yes, until 65. After that, many people can stop if their past results were normal. Bleeding after menopause should always be checked by your doctor.

Who Provides It and Where

Most cervical cancer screening is done by primary care doctors, gynecologists, nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives during a routine or annual visit. When results need more testing or show cancer, gynecologic oncologists take part in care.

  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Obstetrics, Gynecology and Midwifery offers routine Pap testing as part of preventive care, at its offices in the Tampa Bay area. Its doctors work with pathologists, oncologists and radiologists when a result needs follow-up.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health primary care doctors discuss screening at annual wellness visits, and many perform pelvic exams and Pap tests in their offices.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Publishes screening guidelines and, through its Gynecologic Cancer Center, cares for people whose screening finds cervical cancer, with nurse navigators who focus on gynecologic cancers.
Type a city or zip code
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Type a doctor's first or last name
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Cancer

When screening finds cervical cancer, gynecologic oncologists stage it and plan treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists read Pap test cells and biopsy samples to sort normal results from precancer and cancer.

Learn More About Pathology
Women's

Gynecologists and midwives collect Pap and HPV samples at routine visits and follow up abnormal results with colposcopy.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancers
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Trachelectomy

A trachelectomy removes the cervix while keeping the uterus, so a person treated for small, early cervical cancer may still...

Learn More About Trachelectomy

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Cervical Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/cervical-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society Guidelines for the Prevention and Early Detection of Cervical Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/cervical-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/cervical-cancer-screening-guidelines.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Cervical Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/cervical/patient/cervical-screening-pdq
  4. MedlinePlus. Pap Test.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/pap-smear/
  5. Perkins RB, et al. 2019 ASCCP Risk-Based Management Consensus Guidelines for Abnormal Cervical Cancer Screening Tests and Cancer Precursors. Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease. 2020.
    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7147428/

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with rest in between, and can be used to cure a cancer, shrink it before surgery, lower the chance it returns or ease symptoms. Side effects can be managed.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has said the word chemotherapy, you may be bracing for the hardest months of your life. Many people picture what they have seen in films or heard from a friend. The real picture is usually more manageable than that. Chemotherapy is planned around your cancer and your health, side effects are treated as they come, and most people have their treatment as an outpatient and go home the same day.

Chemotherapy is not one medicine. There are more than 100 chemotherapy drugs, and your oncologist chooses the ones most likely to work for your type of cancer, often in a combination. Some people have chemotherapy alone. Many have it alongside surgery, radiation therapy or other medicines.

You will not go through it alone. Oncologists, oncology nurses, pharmacists and support staff guide you through each step, and they want to hear how you are feeling. This page explains how chemotherapy works, what it is used for, how to get ready, what a treatment day is like, the side effects and the questions people ask most.

What Is Chemotherapy and How Does It Work?

Chemotherapy is a group of medicines that destroy cancer cells or stop them from dividing. Cancer cells grow and divide quickly, and chemotherapy targets cells that divide quickly.

Because it travels through the bloodstream, chemotherapy can reach cancer cells almost anywhere in the body, including cells too small to show on a scan. That is what sets it apart from surgery and radiation, which treat one area.

Some healthy cells also divide quickly, in hair roots, the lining of the mouth and gut, and the bone marrow. That is why chemotherapy can cause hair loss, mouth sores, nausea and low blood counts. Healthy cells recover, which is why treatment is given in cycles: a treatment, then a rest period, then the next treatment.

Kinds of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is described by when it is given and how it is given.

By timing:

  • Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is given before surgery to shrink a tumor and make it easier to remove.
  • Adjuvant chemotherapy is given after surgery to destroy cancer cells that may remain.
  • Chemoradiation pairs chemotherapy with radiation therapy, because some medicines make radiation work better.
  • Maintenance chemotherapy is a lower-intensity treatment given over months to help keep a cancer in remission, as with some childhood leukemias.

By route:

  • Through a vein (IV), the most common way, often through a port placed under the skin of the chest.
  • By mouth, as pills or capsules you take at home.
  • As a shot under the skin or into a muscle.
  • Into one area, such as heated chemotherapy placed in the abdomen during surgery (HIPEC), or chemotherapy delivered through a blood vessel straight to a liver tumor.

Chemotherapy is different from immunotherapy, hormone therapy and targeted therapy, though your plan may include them.

What Chemotherapy Is Used For

By goal:

  • To cure the cancer, alone or with surgery and radiation.
  • To shrink a tumor before surgery or radiation.
  • To lower the chance the cancer comes back after surgery.
  • To control a cancer that has spread, slowing its growth.
  • To ease symptoms such as pain or pressure from a tumor.

By condition: chemotherapy is used for many cancers, including breast, lung, colon, rectal, anal, pancreatic, stomach, ovarian, testicular and head and neck cancers, sarcoma, brain tumors and blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. High-dose chemotherapy also prepares the body for a bone marrow transplant.

Not everyone with cancer needs chemotherapy. For many early breast cancers, for example, testing of the tumor itself shows whether chemotherapy would add benefit.

Before You Start

Choosing your plan. Your oncologist looks at your type of cancer, its stage, the makeup of the tumor's cells, your other health conditions and how you responded to any earlier treatment. Then they explain the plan: which medicines, how often, for how long and the goal.

Tests first. Blood tests check your blood counts, liver and kidneys. Some medicines call for a heart or hearing test first.

Your medicines. Tell your team about every medicine, vitamin and supplement you take, since some can interact with chemotherapy. Talk with them before starting any herbal or alternative remedy.

A port. If you will have many IV treatments, a small device called a port may be placed under the skin of your chest so nurses can give medicine and draw blood without a new needle in your arm each time.

Other planning. Ask about fertility preservation if you may want children, and plan for time off work.

Learning what to expect. A nurse or pharmacist meets with you before your first treatment. Orlando Health offers chemotherapy classes for new patients and a family member or support person, in English and Spanish.

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[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

On a treatment day, your blood counts are checked, then a nurse starts your IV or accesses your port. An infusion can take from under an hour to several hours. Wear a loose shirt if you have a port, and bring a blanket, something to read and, for the first visit, a driver.

Your schedule depends on your plan. Treatment is usually given in cycles, such as once every one, two or three weeks, over three to six months. Some treatments need a short hospital stay. Pills are taken at home on a set schedule.

Between treatments, you go about your life as much as you feel able. Many people keep working. Your team checks your blood counts and side effects at each visit and adjusts the plan if needed.

When to get care right away. A fever of 100.4 degrees or higher during chemotherapy is an emergency because infection can move quickly when blood counts are low: call 911 or go to the emergency room, and tell them you are having chemotherapy. Call your oncology team the same day for vomiting or diarrhea that keeps you from drinking, mouth sores that keep you from eating, or new numbness in your hands or feet.

Side Effects and Risks

Side effects depend on the medicines, the dose and you. Many people have only mild ones, and most go away after treatment ends. Common side effects include:

  • Tiredness, which can last for months after treatment.
  • Nausea and vomiting, which medicines given before and after treatment usually prevent or ease.
  • Hair loss, with some medicines and not others. Hair usually grows back.
  • Mouth sores, taste changes, diarrhea or constipation.
  • Infection risk, from low white blood cell counts.
  • Bruising or bleeding, from low platelets, and tiredness from low red blood cells.
  • Nerve changes, tingling or numbness in the hands or feet, called neuropathy.
  • Trouble with memory or focus, sometimes called chemo brain.

Some medicines have longer-term risks, such as effects on the heart, lungs, hearing or fertility, and rarely a second cancer years later. Your team tells you which apply to your plan and watches for them. Tell them about any side effect, since many can be eased by a change in dose or schedule or by another medicine.

Benefits: What It Can Do

Chemotherapy can cure some cancers, including some leukemias, lymphomas and testicular cancers. For others, it lowers the chance of the cancer returning after surgery, shrinks a tumor so surgery can remove it, or slows a cancer that has spread and eases its symptoms. What it can do depends on your cancer and its stage, and your oncologist will tell you the goal of your treatment.

If chemotherapy stops helping, your team will talk with you about other options and about care that focuses on comfort, so your choices are your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does chemotherapy hurt?

The medicine itself does not hurt going in. You may feel a quick pinch when the IV is placed or the port is accessed. Tell your nurse right away about any burning or pain at the site.

Will I lose my hair?

Not always. It depends on the medicines. When hair loss happens, it usually starts a few weeks into treatment and grows back after treatment ends.

Can I work during chemotherapy?

Many people do, sometimes with a lighter schedule around treatment days. It depends on your treatment and how you feel.

Can I be around my family and pets?

Yes. Wash your hands often, avoid people who are sick, and ask your team about handling body fluids for a couple of days after each treatment.

Can complementary therapies help?

Yoga, massage, meditation and acupuncture can ease stress and some side effects alongside chemotherapy, never in place of it. Ask your team first. See the Integrative Medicine Program.

Who Provides It and Where

Chemotherapy is planned by medical oncologists, or hematologist-oncologists for blood cancers, and given by oncology nurses with oncology pharmacists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its medical oncologists plan chemotherapy for every type of cancer it treats, and adults receive it at outpatient infusion centers at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida, with transfusions and IV fluids at the same places. Nurse navigators help coordinate treatment, and dietitians, counselors and pain and palliative care specialists support you through it.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its team plans chemotherapy with surgery for cancers of the colon and rectum, liver and bile ducts, pancreas and stomach, including HIPEC when cancer has spread within the abdomen.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Its medical oncologists choose your chemotherapy and its infusion nurses give it, in the Tampa Bay area, with one record shared by all of your Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health doctors.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and side effects during treatment.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Medical oncologists choose the chemotherapy medicines, dose and schedule, and oncology nurses give each treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Digestive specialists help with nausea, diarrhea and mouth or gut problems that chemotherapy can cause.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Pathology

Pathologists read the biopsy and blood counts that decide which medicines fit and whether it is safe to give the next cycle.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Treatments
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon...

Learn More About HIPEC
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

Learn More About Targeted Therapy
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Chemotherapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/chemotherapy
  2. American Cancer Society. Chemotherapy.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/chemotherapy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Cancer Chemotherapy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/cancerchemotherapy.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Chemotherapy and You: Support for People with Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/chemotherapy-and-you

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to remove colon cancer or disease that keeps coming back. Many colectomies are done through small incisions, and most people go back to eating and living normally.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended a colectomy, you may have just learned that a colonoscopy found a tumor, or that a polyp was too large to remove during the test. You may also have a bowel condition that other treatment has not controlled. It helps to know that people live full lives after this operation, and that the colon has length to spare.

The colon is about five feet long. It absorbs water from digested food and moves stool toward the rectum. When a section is removed, the surgeon usually joins the healthy ends, so bowel movements continue the usual way.

This page explains the kinds of colectomy, who is a candidate, how to prepare, what recovery is like and the risks to go over with your surgeon.

What Is a Colectomy?

A colectomy, also called a colon resection or bowel resection, is an operation to remove part or all of the colon. When only a section is removed, it is a partial colectomy. When the whole colon is removed, it is a total colectomy.

When cancer is the reason, the surgeon removes the tumor with a margin of healthy colon on each side, along with the blood vessels and lymph nodes that serve that section. A pathologist then examines the lymph nodes to see whether cancer has spread, which tells your team the stage of the cancer and whether more treatment would help.

After the section is removed, the surgeon joins the two healthy ends with stitches or staples. This joining is called an anastomosis. You are asleep under general anesthesia for the whole operation.

Kinds of Colectomy

Colectomies are named for the part of the colon removed:

  • Right colectomy, also called a right hemicolectomy, removes the right side of the colon, where it starts in the lower right belly.
  • Left colectomy removes the left side of the colon.
  • Sigmoid colectomy removes the S-shaped last section of the colon, just above the rectum.
  • Total colectomy removes the whole colon. When the rectum is also removed, it is called a proctocolectomy.

Each of these can be done in one of three ways:

  • Laparoscopic colectomy. The surgeon works through several small incisions with a camera and slim instruments. See laparoscopic surgery.
  • Robotic colectomy. The surgeon controls the instruments from a console that gives a magnified, three-dimensional view, through the same kind of small incisions. Surgeons from other hospitals come to Orlando Health to train in robotic colon and rectal surgery. See robotic surgery.
  • Open colectomy. The surgeon makes one longer incision in the belly. It is used when a minimally invasive operation cannot be done safely, for example after earlier surgery or with a large tumor.

See also colorectal surgery.

Why a Colectomy Is Performed

For most people with colon cancer, surgery to remove the tumor is a key part of treatment. A colectomy is used for:

  • Colon cancer. Depending on the stage, the operation can remove the cancer completely. See colon cancer.
  • Polyps too large or too flat to remove safely during a colonoscopy. See colorectal polyps.
  • Other tumors of the bowel, such as a larger appendix cancer, where the right side of the colon is removed with the appendix, and some neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Conditions other than cancer, such as diverticulitis that keeps returning, ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease that medicine does not control, or a blocked or bleeding bowel.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if testing shows a tumor or disease in the colon that surgery can remove, and if your heart, lungs and overall health can handle anesthesia and recovery. For cancer, surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists often review your scans and biopsy results together and recommend the order of treatments. You decide together with them.

How to Prepare

  • Tests before surgery. You may have blood tests, a CT scan and a check of your heart and lungs.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Bowel preparation. Many people drink a laxative solution the day before surgery to empty the colon, and some also take antibiotic pills. Your team will tell you exactly what to do.
  • Food and drink. You will be told when to stop eating and drinking before surgery.
  • Stoma marking. If there is a chance you will need an ostomy, a nurse may mark the best place for it on your belly before surgery and talk with you about what to expect.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and someone to help for the first week or two.
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

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[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

An IV is placed and anesthesia puts you to sleep. In a laparoscopic or robotic operation, the surgeon fills the belly with gas to make room to see, frees the section of colon, divides its blood vessels and lifts it out through one slightly larger incision. The healthy ends are then joined. If the ends cannot be joined safely, the surgeon brings the bowel to an opening on the belly called a stoma, and stool passes into a pouch. This is a colostomy, or an ileostomy when the small intestine is used, and it may be temporary or permanent. Most take two to four hours.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area and then move to a hospital room. You are encouraged to get up and walk the same day or the next, and you start with liquids and move to soft food as your bowels wake up. Many people go home in two to four days after a minimally invasive colectomy, and an open operation usually means a longer stay.

Recovery

Expect tiredness and soreness for a few weeks. Your bowel movements may be loose or come more often at first, and they usually become regular over several weeks. Avoid lifting more than about 10 pounds until your surgeon clears you, often for four to six weeks. Most people return to desk work in two to four weeks and to full activity in about six weeks.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, severe belly pain with a hard, swollen belly, vomiting blood or black, tarry stools, bleeding from the rectum that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, swelling or drainage at an incision, nausea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking, no stool or gas for more than a day, or swelling or pain in one leg.

Risks and Complications

Your surgeon will go over how these apply to you:

  • Bleeding and infection in an incision or inside the belly.
  • Anastomotic leak, where the joined ends do not heal fully and leak, which may need antibiotics, a drain or another operation.
  • Slow return of bowel function, called ileus, which can mean a few more days in the hospital.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs, which your team works to prevent with walking and medicine.
  • Injury to nearby organs, such as the bladder, the small intestine or the tubes that drain urine from the kidneys.
  • A hernia at an incision, months or years later.
  • Switching to an open operation when the surgeon cannot finish safely through small incisions, which keeps the operation safe.

Results of a Colectomy

For early colon cancer, a colectomy alone can remove the cancer completely. When the lymph nodes show cancer, your team may recommend chemotherapy after you recover, to lower the chance of the cancer returning. After cancer surgery, you will have follow-up visits with exams, blood tests, scans and colonoscopies over several years. For conditions other than cancer, a colectomy often ends the repeated attacks, bleeding or blockage that led to it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I need a colostomy bag?

Most people having a colectomy do not. If you do, it is often temporary and is closed in a second, smaller operation a few months later. Your surgeon will tell you beforehand if it is likely.

How much of my colon can I live without?

Your body adjusts well to losing a section of colon. Even after a total colectomy, people live full lives, with more frequent bowel movements.

Will my bowel habits change?

Many people have looser or more frequent bowel movements for a few weeks. After a larger operation, changes can last longer, and diet and medicine help.

When can I eat normally again?

Most people return to a regular diet over a few weeks. Small meals, plenty of fluids and adding fiber slowly can help.

How soon will I know if the cancer has spread?

The pathologist's report on the removed colon and lymph nodes usually comes back within about a week or two. Your surgeon or medical oncologist will go over the stage and what it means for your next steps.

Who Provides It and Where

A colectomy is performed by colorectal surgeons, surgical oncologists and general surgeons, who work with gastroenterologists and medical and radiation oncologists when cancer is the reason. Care is offered at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Surgical, medical and radiation oncologists who plan care together for cancers of the colon and rectum, with robotic and other minimally invasive colectomy among their approaches.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators who coordinate your tests and appointments, with nutrition and support services before and after surgery.
  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute. Colon and rectal surgeons who perform colectomy and work with specialists at the Cancer Institute.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who give chemotherapy after a colectomy when testing shows it would help.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Surgical, medical and radiation oncologists plan colectomy with chemotherapy when colon cancer needs more than surgery.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons remove the diseased section of colon, often through small incisions or with robotic help.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find the tumor or large polyp at colonoscopy and refer you to a surgeon when it must be removed.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Treatments
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

Learn More About Colorectal Surgery
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool...

Learn More About Colostomy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for...

Learn More About Appendectomy
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colon-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Colon Cancer Surgery.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/treating/colon-surgery.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Large bowel resection.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002941.htm
  4. MedlinePlus. Large bowel resection, discharge.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000151.htm
  5. National Cancer Institute. Surgery for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/surgery

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually asleep or sedated, it takes less than an hour, and polyps can be removed during the same test.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe you just turned 45, a stool test came back abnormal, or you have noticed a change in your bowel habits. A colonoscopy is one of the most common tests in medicine, and most people find the day far easier than they expected.

A colonoscopy does two jobs at once. It finds colorectal cancer early, when it is most treatable, and it can stop many cancers from forming at all. Most colorectal cancers start as small growths called polyps, and a polyp found during the test can usually be removed right then. No other screening test looks at the whole colon and removes polyps in the same visit.

Newer bowel preps come in smaller amounts and even as tablets, and a few simple steps make them easier.

This page explains why a colonoscopy is ordered, how to prepare, what happens on the day and what your results mean.

What Is a Colonoscopy?

A colonoscopy is a look at the inside of your large intestine, which is your colon and rectum. A doctor gently passes a long, thin, flexible tube called a colonoscope into the rectum and guides it through the whole colon. A small camera and light on its tip send a clear video to a screen.

Small tools pass through the tube, so the doctor can remove polyps, take tiny tissue samples called biopsies, and treat a spot that is bleeding.

A colonoscopy can be a screening test or a diagnostic test:

  • A screening colonoscopy is for people with no symptoms, to find colorectal polyps and early cancer. It is one of several ways to screen for colorectal cancer.
  • A diagnostic colonoscopy looks for the cause of symptoms such as bleeding, or follows up on an abnormal result from another test, whatever your age.

A sigmoidoscopy is a shorter version that looks at only the lower part of the colon.

Why a Colonoscopy Is Ordered

Doctors order a colonoscopy to:

  • Screen for colorectal cancer and remove polyps before they can turn into cancer
  • Follow up an abnormal stool test, blood test or CT colonography, since a colonoscopy can confirm a finding anywhere in the colon and remove what it finds
  • Look for the cause of symptoms such as rectal bleeding, blood in the stool, a change in bowel habits that lasts, belly pain, unexplained weight loss or a low blood count
  • Watch the colon over time after polyps have been removed, after treatment for colon cancer or rectal cancer, or in people with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis

Children sometimes need one too, to find the cause of belly pain, diarrhea or bleeding.

Who Needs One

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends colorectal cancer screening for adults 45 to 75 at average risk. With a colonoscopy, that usually means one test every 10 years when the results are normal. Between 76 and 85, whether to keep screening is a choice to make with your doctor.

You may need a colonoscopy earlier and more often if:

  • A parent, brother, sister or child had colorectal cancer or an advanced polyp. Screening often starts at 40, or 10 years before the age that relative was diagnosed, whichever is earlier, and may repeat every 5 years when the relative was diagnosed before 60.
  • You have had polyps or colorectal cancer before.
  • You have Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, or an inherited condition such as Lynch syndrome.

Rectal bleeding at any age should be checked, rather than put down to hemorrhoids without an exam.

How to Prepare

Your colon needs to be empty so the doctor can see its lining clearly. Follow the written instructions from your care team, which can differ from the steps below.

  • One to two weeks before. Review your medicines with your care team. You may be asked to pause blood thinners, aspirin, ibuprofen, iron, fiber supplements, or some diabetes and weight-loss medicines. Do not stop any medicine unless your care team tells you to.
  • Three to five days before. Eat low-fiber foods such as white bread, white rice, eggs, tender meat, chicken and fish. Skip nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, berries and raw fruits and vegetables.
  • The day before. Switch to clear liquids only: water, clear broth, apple juice, light-colored sports drinks, black coffee or tea without milk, gelatin and ice pops. Avoid anything red, blue or purple, which can look like blood, and avoid alcohol.
  • The bowel prep. You drink a prescribed laxative, often split into two doses, the evening before and early on the day. Some preps are a smaller drink or tablets. By the end, your stool should be clear or pale yellow liquid.
  • The day of the test. Stop all liquids when your instructions say, often a few hours before.
  • Arrange a ride. The sedation means you cannot drive for the rest of the day, so an adult needs to take you home.

To make the prep easier: chill the solution, drink it through a straw, and stock the bathroom with soft toilet paper and wipes. If nausea is a problem, ask about other prep options.

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What Happens During the Test

You change into a gown, and a nurse places a small IV in your arm for the sedation. Most people are asleep or deeply relaxed and remember little or nothing.

You lie on your left side. The doctor passes the colonoscope into the rectum and gently fills the colon with air or carbon dioxide so the walls open up for a clear view. The doctor then slowly looks over the lining while drawing the scope back. Any polyp found is usually removed with a tiny wire loop or forceps and sent to the lab.

The test itself takes about 30 to 60 minutes. Afterward you rest in a recovery area for a short time while the sedation wears off. You may feel bloated or pass gas, which settles within hours.

Most people can eat normally afterward, starting with light meals. Rest for the rest of the day, and do not drive or sign important papers until the next day.

Risks

A colonoscopy is a common and safe test. Problems are uncommon:

  • Bleeding, mostly where a polyp was removed. It can happen up to two weeks later and usually stops on its own or is treated through a scope.
  • A tear in the colon wall, called a perforation. This is rare, and may need surgery to repair.
  • A reaction to the sedation, such as breathing or heart rhythm changes. Your care team watches you closely throughout.
  • Problems from the prep, such as dehydration, mostly in older adults and people with kidney or heart conditions.
  • A missed polyp or cancer, which is less likely when the prep is good.

Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher. Go to the emergency room or call 911 after a colonoscopy for severe belly pain, dizziness or fainting, or rectal bleeding that will not stop.

Understanding Your Results

The doctor who did the test usually talks with you about what was seen before you go home. Results from any polyps or biopsies take longer, often one to two weeks, and someone from the office will contact you.

  • Normal. No polyps or cancer. If you are at average risk, your next screening is usually in 10 years.
  • Polyps were removed. Most polyps are not cancer. The lab result shows the type, and with the number and size it sets when you need your next colonoscopy, often 3 to 10 years.
  • The prep was not clear enough. The doctor may ask you to repeat the test sooner.
  • Something needs more care. A large polyp may need a second procedure or surgery. If a biopsy shows cancer, you will be guided to the specialists who plan treatment, with tests such as a CT scan to learn more.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a colonoscopy hurt?

Most people are sedated and feel little or nothing. Some feel bloated or crampy afterward, which passes within a few hours.

How long will I be there?

Plan on two to three hours from check-in to leaving. The test itself usually takes 30 to 60 minutes, and the rest is preparing and recovering.

Can I take a stool test instead?

For many people at average risk, yes. A stool test is done at home and needs no prep, but it has to be repeated every one to three years, and a positive result means you will still need a colonoscopy. Ask your doctor which test fits your risk.

What if I cannot finish my prep?

Call your care team. They may give you extra steps or move the test, since an unclear view can mean polyps are missed.

When can I go back to work?

Most people go back to work and normal activities the next day. If a large polyp was removed, your doctor may ask you to avoid heavy lifting or certain medicines for a few days.

Who Provides It and Where

Colonoscopies are done by gastroenterologists and by colon and rectal surgeons, usually in an endoscopy center or hospital. If a colonoscopy finds cancer, the cancer teams below take up diagnosis and treatment.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its St. Petersburg location at Orlando Health Medical Pavilion, Institute Square, includes the Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute, whose colon and rectal surgeons offer colonoscopy and advanced treatment for colorectal polyps. Nurse navigators guide people after a cancer diagnosis.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Specialists who plan care together when a colonoscopy finds cancer of the colon or rectum.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health gastroenterologists offer colonoscopy at several locations across the Tampa Bay area.
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[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

If a colonoscopy biopsy shows cancer, oncologists and surgeons stage it and plan treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons perform colonoscopy and remove large or difficult polyps.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists perform colonoscopy to screen for cancer, remove polyps and find the cause of bleeding.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Treatments
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

Learn More About Colorectal Cancer Screening
Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of...

Learn More About Sigmoidoscopy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

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References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening. 2021.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. Colorectal Cancer Guideline.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/acs-recommendations.html
  3. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Colonoscopy.
    https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diagnostic-tests/colonoscopy
  4. MedlinePlus. Colonoscopy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003886.htm
  5. National Cancer Institute. Colorectal Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colorectal-screening-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at average risk start at 45, and you can choose between a colonoscopy and simpler tests you do at home.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the United States, and one of the most preventable. Most colorectal cancers grow slowly from small growths called polyps, over about 10 years. Screening finds those polyps and early cancers while they are small, and many can be removed before they ever become cancer.

When colorectal cancer is found early, before it spreads, it can very often be cured. Yet about four in ten adults who should be screened are not up to date. Cases are also rising in adults younger than 55, which is why screening now starts at 45 for people at average risk.

The good news is that you have choices. A colonoscopy every 10 years is one option. A stool test you do at home is another. The best test is the one you will actually do, and your doctor can help you choose.

This page explains the tests, who should be screened and when, and what your results mean.

What Is a Colorectal Cancer Screening?

A colorectal cancer screening is a test that looks for colon cancer, rectal cancer and colorectal polyps in people who have no symptoms.

Screening tests work in one of two ways:

  • Stool tests check a sample of your stool for tiny amounts of blood or for changes in DNA that polyps and cancers can shed. You do them at home.
  • Visual exams look at the inside of the colon and rectum with a scope or a CT scan.

Screening is for people who feel well. If you have symptoms such as rectal bleeding, blood in your stool or a change in bowel habits that lasts, see your doctor. You need a diagnostic test, usually a colonoscopy, whatever your age.

Kinds of Colorectal Cancer Screening Tests

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the American Cancer Society accept several tests. Each is repeated on its own schedule when results are normal.

TestWhat it isHow often
Fecal immunochemical test (FIT)A small stool sample collected at home and checked for hidden bloodEvery year
Stool DNA test with FITA whole bowel movement collected at home and checked for blood and DNA changesEvery 1 to 3 years
Guaiac-based stool test (gFOBT)Samples from three bowel movements checked for hidden bloodEvery year
ColonoscopyA thin, flexible scope looks at the whole colon, and polyps are removed during the testEvery 10 years
CT colonographyA CT scan builds a 3-D picture of the colon, sometimes called a virtual colonoscopyEvery 5 years
Flexible sigmoidoscopyA scope looks at the lower part of the colonEvery 5 years, or every 10 years with a yearly FIT

A blood test that looks for signs of colorectal cancer in a blood sample was approved by the FDA in 2024 for adults at average risk. It finds fewer polyps than the tests above and is not yet among the Task Force's recommended tests. Ask your doctor whether it is an option for you.

A colonoscopy is the one test that looks at the whole colon and removes polyps in the same visit. With every other test, an abnormal result needs a follow-up colonoscopy to finish the screening.

Why a Colorectal Cancer Screening Is Ordered

Screening does two things. It finds colorectal cancer early, when treatment works best. And by finding polyps so they can be removed, it can prevent many cancers from forming at all.

Who Needs One

Adults at average risk. The Task Force recommends screening from age 45 to 75. Between 76 and 85, whether to keep screening depends on your health and past results, and is a choice to make with your doctor. Most people over 85 no longer need screening.

People at higher risk may need to start before 45, be screened more often, or use colonoscopy rather than a stool test. You may be at higher risk if:

  • A parent, brother, sister or child had colorectal cancer or an advanced polyp
  • You have had colorectal cancer or certain polyps before
  • You have Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis
  • You have an inherited condition such as Lynch syndrome or familial adenomatous polyposis
  • You had radiation to the belly or pelvis for an earlier cancer

Tell your doctor about any family history of cancer, even if you are not sure of the details.

How to Prepare

How you prepare depends on the test you choose.

  • FIT or stool DNA test. No diet change or bowel prep. Your kit comes with instructions and a way to send the sample back. Do not collect a sample during your period or while you have bleeding hemorrhoids.
  • Guaiac-based test. You may be asked to avoid red meat, aspirin, ibuprofen and large doses of vitamin C for several days, since they can change the result.
  • Colonoscopy and CT colonography. Both need a full bowel prep the day before: clear liquids and a prescribed laxative to empty the colon. A colonoscopy also needs someone to drive you home.
  • Sigmoidoscopy. A lighter prep, often one or two enemas.

Check your coverage. Most insurance plans cover screening for adults 45 and older. Ask whether a follow-up colonoscopy after an abnormal stool test is also covered, since plans differ.

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What Happens During the Test

A stool test at home. You place a collection paper or container in the toilet, take a sample with the tool in the kit, seal it and mail it or drop it off. It takes a few minutes, and there is no pain and no time off work.

A colonoscopy. You are sedated and lie on your side while the doctor guides a thin scope through the colon and removes any polyps. It takes about 30 to 60 minutes, and you go home the same day.

CT colonography. A thin tube placed in the rectum fills the colon with air while you lie on a CT table. The scan takes about 10 to 15 minutes, needs no sedation, and you can drive yourself home.

A sigmoidoscopy. A short, flexible scope looks at the lower colon, usually in a doctor's office and often without sedation. It takes about 10 to 20 minutes.

Risks

Stool tests and blood tests carry no physical risk. They can give a positive result when no cancer is present, which leads to a colonoscopy, and they can miss some polyps and cancers. That is why they are repeated more often.

Colonoscopy carries small risks of bleeding, especially after a polyp is removed, a rare tear in the colon wall, and a reaction to sedation.

CT colonography uses a low dose of radiation and can find spots outside the colon that need more tests, most of which turn out to be harmless.

For people who meet the guidelines, the benefit of finding colorectal cancer early, or preventing it, outweighs these risks.

Understanding Your Results

  • Normal stool test. Repeat it on schedule, every year for FIT.
  • Abnormal stool, blood or CT test. You need a colonoscopy, ideally within a few months. An abnormal result does not mean you have cancer. Most people with a positive stool test do not, and a colonoscopy is how the cause is found.
  • Normal colonoscopy. At average risk, your next screening is usually in 10 years.
  • Polyps removed. The lab report on their type, size and number sets your next colonoscopy, often 3 to 10 years later.
  • Cancer found. You will be guided to specialists who plan treatment.

Screening works only if it is repeated. Keep your next date even when results are normal.

Frequently Asked Questions

What age should I start screening?

At 45 if you are at average risk. If a close relative had colorectal cancer or you have other risk factors, ask your doctor whether you should start earlier.

Is a stool test as good as a colonoscopy?

Both are recommended. A stool test is easier and is done at home, but it must be repeated more often, and a positive result needs a colonoscopy. A colonoscopy can remove polyps on the spot.

I have no symptoms. Do I still need it?

Yes. Early colorectal cancer and polyps usually cause no symptoms, which is exactly why screening is done in people who feel well.

Does insurance pay for screening?

Most plans cover colorectal cancer screening from age 45. Check your plan, including how it covers a colonoscopy after an abnormal stool test.

What if I have bleeding but my last test was normal?

See your doctor. Rectal bleeding or a lasting change in bowel habits should be checked at any age, even between screenings.

Who Provides It and Where

Screening usually starts with your primary care doctor, who helps you choose a test and orders it. Gastroenterologists and colon and rectal surgeons perform colonoscopies and sigmoidoscopies, and radiologists perform CT colonography.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Publishes screening guidelines and helps you find a doctor to choose a test. Its St. Petersburg location at Institute Square includes the Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute, which offers colonoscopy and advanced treatment for colorectal polyps.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Plans care when screening finds cancer of the colon or rectum.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health primary care doctors discuss screening at yearly wellness visits, and its gastroenterologists offer colorectal cancer screening at several locations across the Tampa Bay area.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Screening finds colorectal cancer early or prevents it, and cancer teams treat any cancer it finds.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists do screening colonoscopies and the follow-up colonoscopy after an abnormal stool test.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Radiologists perform CT colonography, the virtual colonoscopy option repeated every five years.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Treatments
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of...

Learn More About Sigmoidoscopy
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

Learn More About Colorectal Surgery

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening. 2021.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. Colorectal Cancer Guideline.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/acs-recommendations.html
  3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Screening for Colorectal Cancer.
    https://www.cdc.gov/colorectal-cancer/screening/index.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Colorectal Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colorectal-screening-pdq
  5. MedlinePlus. Colorectal Cancer Screening.
    https://medlineplus.gov/colorectalcancerscreening.html

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the healthy ends again. Many operations are done through small incisions, and your surgeon plans the approach around your body, your diagnosis and your goals.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended colorectal surgery, you may have just learned you have colon or rectal cancer, or a polyp too large to remove during a colonoscopy, or a bowel condition that keeps coming back. It helps to know that surgery on the colon and rectum is common, that most people return to eating and living normally, and that your care team will walk you through each step.

The colon and rectum make up the large intestine, the last part of your digestive tract. The colon absorbs water and moves stool along, and the rectum holds stool until you have a bowel movement. Colorectal surgery treats problems in these organs and in the anus, from an early cancer removed through the rectum to an operation that takes out a section of bowel.

This page explains the kinds of colorectal surgery, why it is recommended, how to prepare and what recovery is like.

What Is Colorectal Surgery?

Colorectal surgery is the group of operations on the colon, rectum and anus. Most often, the surgeon removes the part of the bowel that holds a tumor or disease, along with a margin of healthy tissue, and then joins the two healthy ends so stool can pass the usual way. When cancer is the reason, the surgeon also removes the nearby lymph nodes and blood vessels, so a pathologist can check whether cancer has spread and your team can plan any further treatment.

You are asleep under general anesthesia for most of these operations.

Kinds of Colorectal Surgery

  • Local excision. For some very early cancers and large polyps in the rectum, the surgeon removes the growth through the anus with special instruments, with no cut in the belly.
  • Colectomy. The surgeon removes part of the colon (a partial colectomy) or all of it (a total colectomy). See colectomy.
  • Rectal surgery. The surgeon removes part or all of the rectum. When the tumor is far enough from the anus, the muscles that control bowel movements can often be saved. When it is very low, an operation called abdominoperineal resection removes the rectum and anus.
  • Surgery with an ostomy. When the ends of the bowel cannot be joined right away, or need time to heal, the surgeon brings the bowel to an opening on the belly, called a stoma. This may be temporary or permanent. See colostomy.
  • Surgery for cancer that has spread in the abdomen. For some cancers of the colon and appendix, surgery to remove all visible tumor is followed by heated chemotherapy in the abdomen. See HIPEC.

Each of these can be done through one larger incision, an open operation, or through several small incisions with a camera, called laparoscopic surgery. Orlando Health surgeons also operate with robotic help. See robotic surgery and minimally invasive surgery.

Why Colorectal Surgery Is Performed

For most people with colon cancer, surgery to remove the tumor is a key part of treatment. Colorectal surgery is also used for:

  • Rectal cancer, often with radiation therapy and chemotherapy before or after surgery. See rectal cancer and colon cancer.
  • Anal cancer, when a small tumor can be removed or when chemotherapy and radiation have not cleared it. See anal cancer.
  • Polyps too large or complex to remove during a colonoscopy. See colorectal polyps.
  • Other tumors of the bowel, such as neuroendocrine tumors and appendix cancers.
  • Conditions other than cancer, such as diverticulitis that keeps returning, inflammatory bowel disease or a blocked bowel.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if testing shows a tumor or disease that surgery can remove, and if your heart, lungs and overall health can handle anesthesia and recovery. For cancer, a team of surgeons, medical oncologists and radiation oncologists often reviews your case together and recommends the order of treatments. The decision is one you make with them.

How to Prepare

  • Tests before surgery. You may have blood tests, a CT scan and a check of your heart and lungs.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners, diabetes medicines and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Bowel preparation. Many people drink a laxative solution the day before to empty the colon, and some also take antibiotic pills. Your team will tell you exactly what to do.
  • Food and drink. You will be told when to stop eating and drinking before surgery. Some programs give you a carbohydrate drink a few hours before.
  • Stoma marking. If there is a chance you will have an ostomy, a nurse who specializes in ostomy care may mark the best place for it on your belly and talk with you about life with a stoma.
  • Stopping smoking and staying active. Both help your body heal.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and help for the first week or two.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

An IV is placed and anesthesia puts you to sleep. In a laparoscopic or robotic operation, the surgeon fills the belly with gas to make room to see, works through several small incisions and removes the diseased section through a slightly larger one. The surgeon then joins the healthy ends with stitches or staples, or creates a stoma. Depending on what is removed, the operation takes about two to four hours or longer.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area and then move to a hospital room. You are up and walking soon, often the same day or the next, and you start with liquids and move to soft food as your bowels wake up. Many people go home in two to four days after a minimally invasive operation, and an open operation usually means a longer stay.

Recovery

Expect tiredness and soreness for a few weeks. Your first bowel movements may be loose or come often, especially after rectal surgery, and this usually improves over weeks to months. Avoid lifting more than about 10 pounds until your surgeon clears you, often for four to six weeks. Most people return to desk work in two to four weeks.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, severe belly pain with a hard, swollen belly, vomiting blood, bleeding from the rectum that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, swelling or drainage at an incision, nausea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking, no stool or gas for more than a day, or swelling or pain in one leg.

Risks and Complications

Your surgeon will go over the risks as they apply to you. They include:

  • Bleeding and infection in an incision or inside the belly.
  • Anastomotic leak, where the joined ends of the bowel do not heal fully and leak, which may need antibiotics, a drain or another operation.
  • Slow return of bowel function, called ileus, which can mean a few more days in the hospital.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs, which your team works to prevent with walking and medicine.
  • Injury to nearby organs or nerves, which after rectal surgery can affect urination or sexual function.
  • Changes in bowel habits, including more frequent or urgent bowel movements.
  • Switching to an open operation when the surgeon cannot finish safely through small incisions.

Results of Colorectal Surgery

For early colon and rectal cancers, surgery alone can remove the cancer completely. For more advanced cancers, surgery is one part of a plan that may include chemotherapy, radiation therapy or both. After surgery, you will have follow-up visits with exams, blood tests and colonoscopies to watch for any return of cancer. For conditions other than cancer, surgery often ends the repeated attacks or bleeding that led to it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I need a colostomy bag?

Most people having colon surgery do not need one. If you do, it is often temporary, and your surgeon will tell you beforehand if it is likely.

Can my surgery be done through small incisions?

Many colorectal operations can. Your surgeon decides based on the location and size of the tumor, your past surgeries and your health.

How long will it take my bowels to return to normal?

Bowel habits often take a few weeks to return to a steady pattern after colon surgery and can take several months after rectal surgery. Diet changes and medicine can help in the meantime.

Will I need chemotherapy after surgery?

It depends on the stage found in the removed tissue. Your medical oncologist will go over the results with you and recommend whether more treatment would help.

What should I eat after surgery?

Start with small, soft meals, add foods as you feel ready and drink plenty of fluids. A dietitian can help with an ostomy or ongoing bowel changes.

Who Provides It and Where

Colorectal surgery is performed by colorectal surgeons and surgical oncologists, who work alongside medical and radiation oncologists when cancer is the reason.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Surgical, medical and radiation oncologists who plan care together for cancers of the colon and rectum, with minimally invasive and robotic surgery among their approaches.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Cancer specialists and nurse navigators who coordinate tests, treatment and support before and after surgery.
  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute. Colon and rectal surgeons who work with specialists at the Cancer Institute, at Orlando Health locations.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who give chemotherapy before or after colorectal surgery.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
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[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Cancer Care Locations
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Surgical, medical and radiation oncologists plan colon and rectal cancer surgery alongside chemotherapy and radiation.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons remove tumors, large polyps and diseased bowel, often through small incisions.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists find the tumors and polyps that lead to surgery and do the follow-up colonoscopies afterward.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Conditions
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Treatments
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool...

Learn More About Colostomy
HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon...

Learn More About HIPEC
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colon-treatment-pdq
  2. National Cancer Institute. Rectal Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/rectal-treatment-pdq
  3. MedlinePlus. Large bowel resection.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002941.htm
  4. MedlinePlus. Large bowel resection, discharge.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000151.htm
  5. National Cancer Institute. Surgery for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/surgery

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool leaves the body into a pouch. It may be temporary while your bowel heals or permanent, and with practice most people return to work, travel, exercise and the foods they enjoy.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has told you that you may need a colostomy, it is natural to have many questions about what it will look like, how it will feel and how your daily life will change. Many people worry most about the pouch. It helps to know that many colostomies are temporary, that the pouch lies flat under ordinary clothes, and that nurses who specialize in ostomy care will teach you everything you need before you go home.

A colostomy gives stool a new way out of the body when the lower colon, rectum or anus needs to heal or has been removed. The surgeon brings a part of the colon through the wall of the belly and stitches it to the skin, making a stoma. The stoma has no nerve endings, so it does not hurt to touch. Stool collects in a pouch that sticks to the skin around it, and you empty or change the pouch yourself.

This page explains the kinds of colostomy, why one is needed, how to prepare, what recovery is like and what risks to talk over with your surgeon.

What Is a Colostomy?

A colostomy is a surgically made opening between the colon and the outside of the belly. It is one kind of ostomy, the general word for an opening that lets waste leave the body by a new route. When the opening comes from the small intestine it is called an ileostomy, and when it carries urine it is called a urostomy.

A colostomy is usually made as part of a larger operation on the colon or rectum, such as a colectomy or other colorectal surgery. It can be done through small incisions or through one larger incision, under general anesthesia.

Kinds of Colostomy

  • Temporary colostomy. It lets a newly joined section of bowel, or a bowel affected by infection or a blockage, rest and heal. A second, smaller operation closes the stoma and reconnects the bowel, often a few months later.
  • Permanent colostomy. It is made when the rectum and anus are removed, or when the bowel cannot be safely reconnected. See abdominoperineal resection.
  • End colostomy. The cut end of the colon is brought through the belly wall. This is the most common kind.
  • Loop colostomy. A loop of colon is lifted to the surface and opened, making one stoma with two openings. It is often temporary and simpler to close later.

Colostomies are also named for the part of the colon they come from. One made from the lower colon, on the left side of the belly, usually passes formed stool. One made higher in the colon passes looser stool.

Why a Colostomy Is Performed

A colostomy is recommended when stool cannot or should not pass through the lower bowel, including for:

  • Colon and rectal cancer, when the surgeon cannot reconnect the two ends of the colon after removing the cancer, or wants a new connection to heal first. See colon cancer and rectal cancer.
  • Anal cancer, in the few cases that need a larger operation. Most people treated for anal cancer do not need a colostomy. See anal cancer.
  • Diverticulitis with infection or a tear in the bowel.
  • A blocked bowel, a serious injury or a fistula.
  • Severe bowel control problems when other treatments have not helped.

Who Is a Candidate

Your surgeon will recommend a colostomy only when it is the safest way to treat your condition or protect a healing bowel. Before surgery, they will tell you whether it is likely, whether it is planned as temporary, and what would decide whether it can be reversed later. You make the decision together.

How to Prepare

  • Meet an ostomy nurse. A nurse trained in wound and ostomy care can mark the best spot for the stoma on your belly, away from skin folds and your waistline, and show you a pouch before surgery.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Bowel preparation. For a planned operation, you may drink a laxative solution the day before and take antibiotic pills. Your team will give you exact instructions.
  • Food and drink. You will be told when to stop eating and drinking before surgery.
  • Supplies and support. Ask who will supply your pouches after you go home, and arrange a ride and help for the first week or two.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

Anesthesia puts you to sleep. The surgeon completes the main operation, then makes a small round opening in the belly at the marked spot, brings the colon through it and stitches the edge to the skin. A clear pouch goes on in the operating room so your team can watch the stoma.

After the Procedure

At first the stoma is swollen and bright pink or red, like the inside of your mouth, and it shrinks over the next six to eight weeks. It may pass gas and loose stool within a few days. Before you go home, an ostomy nurse teaches you and a family member how to empty the pouch, change it, care for the skin around the stoma and measure the stoma so the pouch fits. Most people stay in the hospital for several days, depending on the main operation.

Recovery

Avoid lifting more than about 10 pounds for four to six weeks, which also protects the belly wall around the stoma. Start with soft, low-fiber foods, chew well and drink plenty of fluids, then add foods back one at a time. Gas and odor are usually manageable with diet and pouches made to control them. A home health nurse may visit to check on you.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, bleeding from the stoma that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a stoma that turns dark purple, black or very pale, no stool or gas from the stoma for more than four hours with cramping or nausea, watery output that fills the pouch quickly, a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or skin around the stoma that is raw or breaking down.

Risks and Complications

Your surgeon and ostomy nurse will talk through how these apply to you:

  • Skin irritation around the stoma, often from leaks or a pouch that does not fit well.
  • Leakage and odor, usually solved by changing the pouch size or type.
  • Blockage, when food or stool backs up in the bowel and stops output.
  • Parastomal hernia, a bulge near the stoma where the belly wall has weakened.
  • Prolapse, when the stoma pushes out farther than it should, or retraction, when it pulls in below the skin.
  • Narrowing of the stoma opening.
  • Bleeding and infection from the surgery itself.

Many of these are treated with skin barrier products, a better-fitting pouch, medicine or, now and then, a small operation to revise the stoma.

Results of a Colostomy

A colostomy lets you recover from the condition that made it necessary while your body still clears waste. With a temporary colostomy, a later operation usually reconnects the bowel, and bowel movements pass the usual way again. With a permanent colostomy, most people adjust within a few months and go back to work, exercise, swimming, travel and intimacy. Regular follow-up with your care team helps catch skin or stoma problems early.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will people be able to tell I have a colostomy?

Most people will not know unless you tell them. Modern pouches are thin and lie flat under everyday clothes, and they are made to keep odor in.

Can a colostomy be reversed?

A temporary colostomy is usually reversed with a second, shorter operation once the bowel has healed. A permanent colostomy is not reversed. Your surgeon will tell you which kind you have.

How often do I change the pouch?

Most people empty the pouch a few times a day and change the skin barrier every three to seven days, depending on the system and your skin.

Can I shower, swim and exercise?

Yes. Water does not hurt the stoma. You can shower with or without the pouch, swim with it on, and return to exercise as your surgeon allows, building up core strength slowly.

Where do I get supplies?

Your ostomy nurse will help you choose products and set up a supplier before you leave the hospital, and can help if your needs change.

Who Provides It and Where

A colostomy is made by colorectal surgeons and surgical oncologists, and ostomy nurses teach and support you before and after the operation.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Surgeons who remove colon and rectal cancers, with a colostomy when the two ends of the colon cannot be reconnected.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators and support services that help you and your family through cancer surgery and recovery.
  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute. Colon and rectal surgeons who prepare people for an ostomy as part of cancer surgery and care for stomas and their complications, at Orlando Health locations.
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Cancer

Cancer surgeons make a colostomy when colon, rectal or anal cancer surgery leaves bowel that cannot be rejoined yet.

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Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons create, care for, revise and later reverse colostomies for cancer and other bowel conditions.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
General Surgery

General surgeons make an emergency colostomy for a torn, infected or blocked bowel, as in severe diverticulitis.

Learn More About General Surgery
Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Treatments
Urostomy

A urostomy is surgery that makes a new way for urine to leave your body when the bladder has been removed or can no longer...

Learn More About Urostomy
Colectomy

A colectomy is surgery to remove part or all of the colon, the longest part of the large intestine. It is most often done to...

Learn More About Colectomy
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

Learn More About Colorectal Surgery
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

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Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema

References

  1. MedlinePlus. Colostomy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002942.htm
  2. MedlinePlus. Ostomy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ostomy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Changing your ostomy pouch.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000204.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colon-treatment-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and painless, and it helps your care team find a problem, see its size and location, plan treatment and check how treatment is working.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you have a CT scan scheduled, it may be one of the first tests after a symptom or an unusual result, or one of many during cancer care. Either way, the scan itself takes only minutes, and knowing what to expect can make the day feel easier.

CT stands for computed tomography. You may also hear it called a CAT scan. A regular X-ray takes one flat picture. A CT scan takes many X-ray pictures from different angles as you move through a ring-shaped machine, and a computer puts them together into cross-section images, like looking at the slices of a loaf of bread. Your doctor can see organs, bones, blood vessels and soft tissue in far more detail than a plain X-ray shows.

In cancer care, CT scans are one of the most common imaging tests. They help find tumors, show whether cancer has spread, guide a biopsy needle and track how a tumor responds to treatment.

This page explains the kinds of CT scans, why one is ordered, how to prepare, what happens during the scan, the risks and how your results are shared.

What Is a CT Scan?

A CT scanner is a large, open ring with a table that slides through it. Inside the ring, an X-ray tube turns around you and sends thin beams through the body. Detectors on the other side measure how much of each beam passes through. Dense tissue such as bone blocks more X-rays than soft tissue, fat or air, and the computer uses those differences to build the images.

The images can be viewed slice by slice or combined into three-dimensional pictures. A radiologist, a doctor who specializes in reading imaging tests, studies them and writes a report.

Kinds of CT Scans

  • CT with contrast. A contrast dye, usually given through a vein in your arm, makes blood vessels, organs and some tumors stand out more clearly. For a scan of the belly, you may also drink a contrast liquid.
  • CT without contrast. Some questions, such as looking at the lungs or for kidney stones, are answered without dye.
  • Low-dose CT. A scan that uses less radiation, used to screen for lung cancer in people at high risk. See lung cancer screening.
  • CT-guided biopsy. The scanner shows the doctor where to place a needle to take a sample. See biopsy.
  • PET-CT. A CT scan combined with a PET scan, which shows how active tissue is. See PET-CT scan.

Why a CT Scan Is Ordered

A CT scan can help your care team:

  • Look for the cause of symptoms, such as pain, a lump or unexplained weight loss.
  • Find and measure a tumor, including its exact location and size.
  • Stage cancer, which means learning whether it has spread to lymph nodes or other organs. Staging guides the treatment plan.
  • Plan treatment, such as surgery or radiation therapy.
  • Check how treatment is working and watch for cancer coming back afterward.
  • Find related problems, such as a blood clot in the lungs, which people with cancer have a higher chance of developing.

Who Needs One

Your doctor orders a CT scan when the answer to a question depends on a detailed picture. A CT scan is helpful in many conditions, and it has limits. It does not replace a colonoscopy for finding colon cancer or polyps, for example, and a mammogram remains the test used to screen for breast cancer. Your doctor will choose the test that fits your question, which may be an MRI or ultrasound instead.

How to Prepare

Follow the instructions your care team or the imaging center gives you, since they depend on the part of the body being scanned and whether contrast is used.

  • Food and drink. If you will receive contrast, you may be asked not to eat for a few hours beforehand. Clear liquids are often allowed.
  • Allergies. Tell your care team if you have ever reacted to contrast dye or have other serious allergies. You may receive medicine beforehand to lower the chance of a reaction.
  • Kidney health and diabetes. Contrast is cleared by the kidneys. Say if you have kidney disease or diabetes, or take metformin, since you may need a blood test first or a change in your medicines.
  • Pregnancy. Tell your care team if you are pregnant or might be.
  • Clothing. Wear loose clothes and leave jewelry at home. You may change into a gown, since metal can blur the images.
  • Belly scans. If you need to drink contrast, you may be asked to arrive early to finish it.
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What Happens During the Test

A technologist will bring you to the scanner room and help you lie on the table, usually on your back. If you are having contrast through a vein, a small IV line is placed in your arm.

The table moves slowly through the ring. The technologist watches from the next room, can see and hear you the whole time, and will talk you through each step. You may hear buzzing or clicking. You will be asked to hold still and to hold your breath for a few seconds at a time, because movement blurs the pictures.

When contrast goes in, you may feel warm all over or notice a metallic taste. Some people feel as if they need to urinate. These feelings pass within a minute or two.

The scan itself usually takes only a few minutes. The whole visit, including any contrast you drink, can take longer. Afterward, you can usually go back to your normal activities right away. Drink plenty of fluids to help your body clear the contrast.

Risks

  • Radiation. A CT scan uses more radiation than a plain X-ray. Your care team weighs this small risk against the value of the information, and uses the lowest dose that gives clear images.
  • Contrast reactions. Most people have no reaction. A mild reaction can cause itching, a rash or hives. Serious reactions are rare, and the staff is trained to treat them right away.
  • Kidney effects. In people whose kidneys already work less well, contrast can affect kidney function, which is why your care team may check a blood test first.
  • Pregnancy. Radiation can affect a developing baby, so a different test may be chosen.

Call your care team the same day for a rash, hives or itching that starts after your scan, or swelling or pain where the IV was placed.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for trouble breathing, swelling of your face or throat, chest pain, or fainting.

Understanding Your Results

A radiologist reads your images and sends a report to the doctor who ordered the scan. Your doctor will share the results with you and explain what they mean. Results are often ready within a few days. Many patients can also see the report in the patient portal, sometimes before their doctor has reviewed it, so it is fine to wait for your appointment to talk it through.

The report describes what the radiologist saw: the size and location of any area of concern, and whether lymph nodes or organs look normal. A scan can show that something is there, and often what it is likely to be. Confirming cancer usually takes a biopsy.

During cancer care, your scans are compared over time to see whether a tumor is shrinking, stable or growing. Your care team reviews your scans together and uses them to plan your next step.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a CT scan the same as an MRI?

No. A CT scan uses X-rays and is very fast. An MRI uses magnets and radio waves, takes longer and shows some soft tissues in more detail. Your doctor picks the one that answers your question best.

Will I feel closed in?

The CT ring is short and open at both ends, so most people do not feel enclosed. Tell your care team if you are anxious, since medicine to help you relax may be an option.

Can I drive myself home?

Usually, yes. Unless you were given medicine to relax, you can drive and return to your day right away.

Why do I need so many scans during treatment?

Each scan shows how the cancer is responding, which lets your care team adjust your treatment when needed. The schedule is planned to give useful answers while limiting radiation.

Is the contrast dye safe if I am breastfeeding?

Most guidance says breastfeeding can continue after iodine contrast. Ask your care team what they recommend for you.

Who Provides It and Where

CT scans are performed by radiologic technologists and read by radiologists. Your cancer care team uses the results to plan treatment.

CT scans are available at Orlando Health locations across Central and West Florida.

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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Cancer teams use CT scans to find and stage a tumor, plan treatment and check how it is responding.

Learn More About Cancer
Pulmonary / Critical Care

Lung specialists use CT to follow lung nodules and to find blood clots in the lungs.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Radiology

Technologists perform the scan and radiologists read every image and send the report to your doctor.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Treatments
Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history....

Learn More About Lung Cancer Screening
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes...

Learn More About Mammogram
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Computed Tomography (CT) Scans and Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/ct-scans-fact-sheet
  2. American Cancer Society. CT Scan for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/imaging-tests/ct-scan-for-cancer.html
  3. RadiologyInfo.org (Radiological Society of North America and American College of Radiology). Computed Tomography (CT), Body.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/bodyct
  4. MedlinePlus. CT Scan.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ctscans.html
  5. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Computed Tomography (CT).
    https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/medical-x-ray-imaging/computed-tomography-ct

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound with stitches. It is usually done in the office with numbing medicine, you go home the same day, and the tissue is checked under a microscope.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended excisional surgery, you may have just learned that a spot on your skin is cancer, or that a mole or growth needs to come out to be checked. Hearing the word surgery can make it sound bigger than it is. For most people this is a short visit, with medicine that numbs only the area being treated, and you stay awake and go home the same day.

Excision is one of the most common ways to treat skin cancer. The doctor removes the growth along with a margin, a border of normal-looking skin, because cancer cells can reach slightly past the edge you can see. A lab then examines the removed tissue to make sure the edges are clear. When they are, the cancer is usually gone for good.

The same procedure removes moles, cysts and other growths, and it is also a way to take a biopsy of a spot that looks concerning. This page explains how excisional surgery works, who it helps, how to prepare and what healing looks like.

What Is Excisional Surgery?

Excisional surgery, also called surgical excision, removes a growth from the skin with a scalpel. The doctor draws an outline around the growth that includes the margin, numbs the area, cuts along the outline and lifts out the skin in one piece. The removed tissue goes to a pathologist, a doctor who examines it under a microscope and reports whether cancer reaches the edges.

The wound is usually shaped like a narrow football, which lets the skin close in a straight line. Most excisions are closed with stitches, often a layer that dissolves under the skin and a layer on top that comes out later.

Kinds of Excisional Surgery

  • Excisional biopsy. The whole spot is removed with a small margin to find out what it is. It is often used for a mole that may be melanoma. See skin biopsy.
  • Standard excision. A diagnosed basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer is removed with a set margin of healthy skin, usually a few millimeters.
  • Wide local excision. After a melanoma diagnosis, a wider margin is removed around the biopsy site. The width depends on how thick the melanoma is. See melanoma surgery.

Why Excisional Surgery Is Performed

Excision removes the whole growth and lets the lab confirm it is gone. It is used for:

  • Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma on the trunk, arms and legs, and some on the face.
  • Melanoma, for the biopsy and the wider removal that follows.
  • Moles that are changing or look unusual.
  • Cysts, lipomas and other growths that are bothersome or need a diagnosis.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if your skin cancer has clear borders and is on skin with enough room to close neatly, such as the back, chest, arms or legs. On the nose, eyelids, lips and ears, or for a cancer that came back, your doctor may suggest Mohs surgery to save more healthy skin. People taking blood thinners can usually still have an excision. Your doctor weighs the type, size and location of the growth with your health, and you decide together.

How to Prepare

  • Medicines. Tell your team about every medicine and supplement, especially blood thinners, aspirin, fish oil and vitamin E. Do not stop a prescribed blood thinner unless the doctor who prescribed it says to.
  • Your skin. Shower the morning of the procedure and skip lotion, makeup or sunscreen on the area.
  • Smoking. Cutting back or quitting before and after surgery helps the wound heal.
  • Clothing. Wear loose clothes that make the area easy to reach.
  • A ride. Most people drive themselves, but arrange a ride if the site is near your eye, on your hand or foot, or if you will be given medicine to relax.

Your care team will tell you anything else your procedure needs.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You stay awake. The doctor cleans the skin, marks the outline and injects a numbing medicine, which stings for a few seconds. After that you may feel pressure or tugging, but no sharp pain. Removing the growth and placing stitches usually takes 15 to 60 minutes, depending on the size and location.

After the Procedure

A bandage goes over the stitches, and you go home the same day. As the numbing wears off, the area may ache. Acetaminophen usually controls it; ask before taking ibuprofen or aspirin. Keep the first bandage dry and in place for a day or two, then clean the area each day as your team shows you.

Recovery

Bruising and swelling are common for a few days, especially near the eyes. Avoid heavy lifting, hard exercise and stretching the area while it heals, usually one to two weeks. Stitches come out in about one to two weeks, sooner on the face. The lab report usually comes back within a week or two, and your team calls you with it.

Call 911 for bleeding that will not stop after 20 minutes of firm pressure, chest pain or trouble breathing, or swelling of the face or throat. Call your care team the same day for redness that spreads, warmth, pus, a fever over 100.4 degrees, pain that keeps getting worse, or a wound that opens.

Risks and Complications

Excision is a common, low-risk procedure. Possible problems include:

  • Bleeding under the skin, which can form a firm, swollen area.
  • Infection, usually treated with antibiotics.
  • A scar. Every excision leaves one. Most fade and flatten over months, and some thicken.
  • The wound opening before it fully heals.
  • Numbness around the scar, which often improves over months.
  • Cancer at the edge of the tissue, which means more skin needs to be removed.

Your doctor will talk through the risks for your location and health.

Results of Excisional Surgery

When the lab finds clear margins, excision cures most basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers and most early melanomas. If cancer reaches an edge, your doctor may remove more skin, recommend Mohs surgery or suggest another treatment. Larger wounds may be repaired with a flap or graft; see skin cancer reconstruction. Because one skin cancer raises the chance of another, regular skin exams continue after you heal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does excisional surgery hurt?

The numbing shot stings briefly. After that, most people feel only pressure. Soreness for a day or two afterward is common and usually eased with acetaminophen.

How big will my scar be?

The scar is usually about three times longer than the growth was wide, because of the shape needed to close the skin flat. Most scars fade over the following year.

What happens if the margins are not clear?

Your doctor removes more tissue, either with another excision or with Mohs surgery, or discusses other treatment. Finding cancer at an edge is common and treatable.

When can I exercise again?

Most people wait one to two weeks, until the stitches are out. Your doctor will tell you what is safe for the location of your wound.

How do I care for the wound?

Keep it clean and covered, and apply petroleum jelly as directed so it heals moist. Protect the scar from the sun for a year so it fades evenly.

Who Provides It and Where

Excisions are performed by dermatologists, dermatologic surgeons, general and surgical oncologists and plastic surgeons.

  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists who remove skin cancers, moles and other growths, including simple and wide excisions for melanoma, at offices in Carrollwood, Land O' Lakes, North Tampa, St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team, with dermatology, surgical oncology and plastic surgery, removes skin cancers at every stage, in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Dermatology

Dermatologists cut out a skin cancer with a margin of healthy skin and check the edges under a microscope.

Learn More About Dermatology
Pathology

Pathologists look at the removed skin to confirm the cancer and that the edges are clear.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Treatments
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Reconstruction
Skin Cancer Screening

A skin cancer screening is a head-to-toe look at your skin for spots that could be cancer. It takes a few minutes, needs no...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Screening

References

  1. American Academy of Dermatology. Basal cell carcinoma: Diagnosis and treatment.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/bcc/treatment
  2. American Academy of Dermatology. Squamous cell carcinoma: Diagnosis and treatment.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/scc/treatment
  3. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/skin-treatment-pdq
  4. National Cancer Institute. Melanoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/melanoma-treatment-pdq
  5. MedlinePlus. Skin lesion biopsy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003840.htm

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for you, and what the result would mean. A genetic counselor reviews your family history, explains your options and helps you plan screening or prevention.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Maybe your mother and her sister both had breast cancer. Maybe you were diagnosed younger than most people, or a relative has tested positive for a gene change. Questions like these can bring a lot of worry, about yourself and about your children. Genetic counseling is a way to get clear answers and a plan.

Most cancer is not inherited. About 5 to 10 percent of cancers are linked to a gene change passed down from a parent. When a family has one of these changes, knowing about it can change a great deal: when screening starts, which tests are used, what steps can lower risk, and sometimes which treatment is chosen for a cancer that has already been found.

A genetic counselor is a health professional trained in both genetics and counseling. They help you decide whether testing is right for you, arrange it if you choose it, and explain your results in plain words. You never have to decide anything on the spot.

What Is Genetic Counseling and How Does It Work?

Genetic counseling is a conversation, and sometimes a test, focused on your inherited risk for cancer. Your genetic counselor will:

  • Review your personal medical history and your family history of cancer, often drawing a family tree that covers three generations.
  • Assess the chance that a hereditary cancer runs in your family.
  • Explain the benefits, risks and limits of genetic testing, so you can decide whether you want it.
  • Arrange the test if you choose it, which usually means a blood or saliva sample.
  • Interpret your result and explain what it means for you and for your relatives.

Some genes, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2, help protect against cancer. When one of these genes has a harmful change, called a mutation or variant, it does not work as it should, and the risk of certain cancers goes up. A positive result means a higher risk. It does not mean you will get cancer.

Kinds of Genetic Testing

  • Inherited (germline) testing looks at the genes you were born with, using a blood or saliva sample. This is the testing genetic counseling usually focuses on, because the result can apply to your relatives too.
  • Tumor testing looks at the genes inside a cancer itself, using a sample from a biopsy or surgery. It helps your care team choose treatment and is described on the molecular profiling page. A tumor result can sometimes suggest an inherited change, which is one reason a genetic counselor may be brought in.
  • Panel testing checks many cancer-related genes at once.

Hereditary Cancer Syndromes

A hereditary cancer syndrome is an inherited gene change that raises the chance of certain cancers. These are among the most common:

  • Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome (BRCA1 and BRCA2). Harmful changes in these genes raise the risk of breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancer.
  • Lynch syndrome. The most common inherited cause of colon cancer. It also raises the risk of uterine, ovarian, stomach and other cancers, so colonoscopy usually starts in the 20s.
  • Familial adenomatous polyposis. Hundreds of polyps form in the colon, often from the teens. Regular checks start early, and surgery is planned to prevent colon cancer.
  • Li-Fraumeni syndrome. A change in the TP53 gene that raises the risk of sarcoma, breast cancer, brain tumors and leukemia, often at young ages.
  • Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2 (MEN2). A change in the RET gene that leads to medullary thyroid cancer and tumors of the adrenal and parathyroid glands. Removing the thyroid early can prevent the cancer.

What Genetic Counseling Is Used For

For people without cancer, it helps you understand your own risk and decide on screening or prevention. It may be recommended if:

  • Someone in your family was diagnosed with cancer before age 50.
  • Several close relatives on the same side of the family had the same or related cancers, such as breast, ovarian, colorectal and pancreatic cancers.
  • A relative had a rare cancer, such as breast cancer in a man, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer or prostate cancer that has spread.
  • A relative has already tested positive for a gene change.
  • One person in the family had two or more separate cancers.
  • Your family has Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, which is linked to a higher chance of BRCA changes.

For people with cancer, it can help explain why the cancer happened, guide treatment and surgery choices, show whether you have a higher chance of a second cancer, and give your relatives information they can act on. It is often offered for breast cancer, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer and some endocrine cancers.

Before You Start

  • Gather your family history. Ask relatives which cancers they had, at what age and whether anyone had genetic testing. Include both sides of the family. It is fine if you cannot find every detail.
  • Bring any test results from relatives who had genetic testing. A copy of a positive result helps your counselor order the most useful test.
  • Fill out the questionnaire. At the Orlando Health Cancer Institute, you are sent a questionnaire about your family's history of cancer before your first visit.
  • Check your insurance. In many cases, health insurance covers genetic counseling and testing when your personal or family history suggests a hereditary cancer, and your counselor can help you find out what your plan covers.
  • Think about what you want to know. Some people want every answer right away. Others want time. Both are fine.
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What to Expect

Your first visit. Your genetic counselor reviews your personal and family history, explains hereditary cancer syndromes and goes over the benefits, risks and limits of testing. If testing makes sense and you want it, the test and any insurance approval can be started at this visit. Testing usually involves a blood draw.

Waiting for results. Results often take two to four weeks.

Your second visit. Your counselor shares the results, explains your chance of developing cancer and your options for managing it. At the Orlando Health Cancer Institute, genetic counseling typically takes up to two visits.

Your results. There are three main kinds:

  • Positive: a harmful gene change was found. Your care team will work with you on a plan, which is shared with your doctors.
  • Negative: no harmful change was found in the genes tested. Your risk may still be higher than average because of your family history, and other risk tools can help estimate it.
  • Variant of uncertain significance: a change was found, but it is not yet known whether it raises risk. Most of these are later found to be harmless, and your care plan is usually based on your family history in the meantime.

Side Effects and Risks

Genetic testing has no physical risks beyond those of a blood draw or a saliva sample. The risks are mostly about feelings and information:

  • Emotional strain. A result can bring worry, guilt about passing a change to children, or mixed feelings when relatives test positive. Your counselor can connect you with support.
  • Family conversations. Results can affect relatives, and sharing them can be hard. Your counselor can help you plan what to say.
  • Privacy. Results become part of your medical record. The federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act stops health insurers and most employers from using genetic information against you. It does not cover life, disability or long-term care insurance, so ask your counselor about these before testing.

Benefits: What It Can Do

  • A plan that fits your real risk. People with a higher risk may start screening earlier, have it more often or add tests such as a breast MRI. At the Orlando Health Cancer Institute, the High-Risk Breast Cancer Clinic offers personalized care for women at higher risk, and doctors in the other specialty cancer centers can build prevention plans for other inherited risks.
  • Ways to lower risk, which may include medicine, lifestyle changes or preventive surgery, discussed with your care team and chosen by you.
  • Better treatment choices for a cancer already diagnosed, since some treatments work best against cancers linked to certain gene changes.
  • Information for your family. Relatives can choose to be tested for the change found in your family, and your counselor can counsel them too.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to get tested if I see a genetic counselor?

No. Counseling helps you decide. Many people meet with a counselor and choose not to test, or to test later.

If my test is negative, does that mean I will not get cancer?

No. A negative result means no harmful change was found in the genes tested. You still have the same everyday risk as others, and family history can still raise it.

My parent had cancer. Will I get it too?

Not necessarily. Most cancers that appear in families are not inherited, and shared habits or surroundings can explain some family patterns. A counselor can help sort out your own risk.

Can men benefit from genetic counseling?

Yes. Men can have and pass on BRCA changes, and some changes raise the risk of breast, prostate and pancreatic cancer in men.

Should my children be tested?

Testing for adult-onset cancer risk is usually offered once children are adults and can decide for themselves. Your counselor can explain the right timing for your family.

Who Provides It and Where

Genetic counseling is provided by board-certified genetic counselors, working with your doctors.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. The institute's Cancer Genetics and High Risk Care Center offers genetic counseling and testing, and genetic counselors are part of the breast cancer team.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its patients can be referred to the institute's genetic counseling for cancers of the colon and rectum, liver and bile ducts, pancreas and stomach.

Genetic counseling is offered at Orlando Health Cancer Institute locations across Central Florida.

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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Genetic counselors on the cancer team assess inherited risk and guide screening, prevention and treatment choices.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists refer families with early colon cancer or many polyps, and adjust colonoscopy timing to the result.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Women's

Gynecologists and OB-GYNs flag family histories of breast and ovarian cancer and refer for counseling.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Endocrine Cancer

Endocrine cancers start in the glands that make hormones, such as the thyroid, parathyroid and adrenal glands, or in...

Learn More About Endocrine Cancer
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

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Treatments
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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MUGA Scan

A MUGA scan measures how well your heart pumps blood. A small amount of tracer is added to your blood, and a camera takes...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Genetic Testing for Inherited Cancer Susceptibility Syndromes.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics/genetic-testing-fact-sheet
  2. National Cancer Institute. The Genetics of Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics
  3. American Cancer Society. Genetic Counseling and Testing for Cancer Risk.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/genetics/genetic-testing-for-cancer-risk.html
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patients/guidelines/cancers.aspx
  5. MedlinePlus. Genetic Counseling.
    https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/testing/genetic-counseling/
  6. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Genetic Information Discrimination.
    https://www.eeoc.gov/genetic-information-discrimination

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds the parts of the mouth, jaw, throat, face or neck removed during cancer surgery. Surgeons often move skin, muscle or bone from another part of your body to restore how you eat, swallow, speak and breathe, and to bring back your appearance as closely as they can.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your surgeon has said you will need reconstruction, you may be facing an operation that removes part of your tongue, jaw, cheek, palate, throat or skin. That news often brings a second worry on top of the cancer: what you will look like afterward, and whether you will be able to eat and talk the way you do now.

Reconstruction exists to answer that worry. In most cases it happens during the same operation that removes the cancer, so you wake up with the gap already filled. Surgeons use tissue from your own body, shaped to fit, and sometimes a custom prosthesis, to restore both how the area works and how it looks.

Recovery takes time, and many people work with speech and swallowing therapists afterward. Most regain much of their ability to eat, speak and swallow, and many return to the activities they enjoyed. This page explains the kinds of reconstruction, who needs it, how to prepare, what recovery is like and the risks to know about.

What Is Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction?

Head and neck cancer reconstruction is surgery that restores tissue removed to treat a cancer of the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, jaw, skin or neck. It can also repair damage from radiation, and the same methods treat severe injuries to the face.

The head and neck hold the structures you use to breathe, eat, swallow, speak and show expression. Removing even a small area can change how these work. A plastic and reconstructive surgeon plans the repair together with the head and neck surgeon who removes the cancer, often before the operation, so that both steps happen under the same anesthesia.

Kinds of Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

The method depends on the size of the gap, where it is and what it needs to do.

  • Direct closure and skin grafts. Small areas are closed with stitches or covered with a thin layer of skin taken from elsewhere.
  • Local flaps. Nearby skin and tissue are moved over the gap while staying attached to their own blood supply.
  • Regional flaps. A larger piece of muscle and skin, often from the chest or the back of the neck, is turned up into place.
  • Free flaps. Tissue is taken from another part of the body with its artery and vein, then connected to blood vessels in the neck under a microscope. Skin and fat often come from the forearm or thigh, muscle from the back or belly, and bone, often from the lower leg, rebuilds the jaw or the roof of the mouth.
  • Prosthetics. A custom-made device, such as a plate that fills a gap in the roof of the mouth or an artificial ear or nose, replaces what surgery removed. Dental implants may restore teeth.

Why Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction Is Performed

Reconstruction is performed to restore:

  • Eating and swallowing, after surgery on the tongue, floor of the mouth, palate or throat.
  • Speech, by giving the tongue and mouth the tissue they need to move and seal.
  • Breathing and the airway, after surgery on the throat or voice box.
  • The jaw and face, so the face keeps its form and the teeth have a base.
  • Protection of vital structures, such as the blood vessels in the neck, by covering them with healthy tissue.
  • Healing after radiation, where tissue damaged by treatment needs fresh tissue with a good blood supply.

Who Is a Candidate

Most people who need surgery for a larger cancer of the head and neck are candidates, and the plan is made before the cancer operation. Reconstruction is also offered later to people whose earlier surgery or radiation left a gap, and to people with severe injuries. Your surgeons look at your overall health, smoking, blood vessels and any planned radiation when choosing a method.

How to Prepare

  • Stop smoking. Smoking narrows blood vessels and can cause a flap to fail. Ask your team for help quitting.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • A dental visit. If radiation is planned, a dental check and any needed repairs come first.
  • Nutrition. A dietitian may help you build strength before surgery and plan for a feeding tube if you will need one for a while.
  • Tests. You may have scans to plan the repair, and an ultrasound or CT of the leg if bone will be taken from it.
  • Help at home. Plan for a hospital stay of several days and for someone to help you when you go home.

Your surgical team will give you written instructions for your situation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You are asleep under general anesthesia. The head and neck surgeon removes the cancer, and the reconstructive surgeon then builds the repair. For a free flap, the surgeon takes tissue from the donor site, shapes it to fit and joins its tiny blood vessels to those in the neck. The operation often takes many hours. A temporary breathing tube in the neck, called a tracheostomy, may be placed to protect your airway while the swelling goes down.

After the Procedure

Most people spend several days to about a week in the hospital, sometimes starting in intensive care. Nurses check the flap often for color, warmth and blood flow. You may receive nutrition through a feeding tube until you can swallow safely. Speech and swallowing therapists begin working with you, and physical therapists help you get moving.

Recovery

Swelling in the face and neck goes down over weeks. The donor site, such as the forearm or leg, heals at the same time and may need a dressing or a brace for a while. Many people begin radiation four to six weeks after surgery. Speech and swallowing therapy often continues for months.

Call your surgeon's team right away, day or night, if the flap turns pale, blue, dark or cold. Call 911 for trouble breathing or bleeding that will not stop. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, swelling or drainage at an incision, or trouble with your feeding tube.

Risks and Complications

Reconstruction is major surgery. The risks include:

  • Flap problems, where a blood clot in the connected vessels cuts off blood flow. Most happen in the first few days and many can be fixed with a quick return to surgery. A flap is lost in a small share of cases.
  • Bleeding and infection in the neck or at the donor site.
  • Slow wound healing, more likely after radiation or with smoking.
  • Donor site effects, such as weakness, numbness or a scar where tissue was taken.
  • Changes in speech or swallowing, which therapy helps improve.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs, pneumonia and reactions to anesthesia.

Your surgeons will talk through the risks as they apply to you.

Results of Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Reconstruction cannot make the area exactly as it was, and the goal is to bring function and appearance as close to before as possible. Many people return to eating by mouth, speak clearly enough to be understood and regain a natural look in clothing and daily life. Results depend on how much tissue was removed and on radiation. Some people choose later touch-up procedures, dental implants or a prosthesis to improve the result.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I be able to eat and talk normally again?

Many people regain much of their ability, though it can take months of therapy. How much depends on the area treated, and your team will tell you what to expect.

Will I have scars?

Yes, at the surgery site and the donor site. Surgeons place incisions in natural creases where they can, and scars fade over time.

Is reconstruction done at the same time as cancer surgery?

Usually. Repairing the area in the same operation lets healing and any radiation start sooner. Some people have reconstruction later.

Does reconstruction affect radiation treatment?

A well-healed flap brings its own blood supply, which helps the area tolerate radiation. Your teams plan the timing together.

Will I need a feeding tube?

Some people do for a few weeks while the mouth or throat heals. A dietitian and swallowing therapist help you return to eating by mouth.

Who Provides It and Where

Head and neck cancer reconstruction is performed by plastic and reconstructive surgeons working with head and neck cancer surgeons, with speech and swallowing therapists, dietitians and physical therapists supporting recovery.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Head and Neck Cancer Center plans reconstruction with its head and neck plastic and reconstructive surgeons, and its team includes speech and language pathologists, physical therapists, dietitians who manage temporary tube feeding, and a certified nurse navigator from diagnosis to survivorship.
  • Orlando Health Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute. Its surgeons perform head and neck cancer reconstruction, including microvascular free muscle, bone, skin and fat transfer and custom prosthetic procedures.
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Advanced Rehabilitation

Speech, swallowing and physical therapists help people eat, talk and move again after the repair heals.

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Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons move skin, muscle or bone from elsewhere in the body to rebuild the jaw, mouth, throat or face.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Head and neck cancer surgeons plan the repair with the reconstructive team so both steps happen in one operation.

Learn More About Cancer
Conditions
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers
Treatments
Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of...

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References

  1. American Cancer Society. Reconstructive Surgery for Head and Neck Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/oral-cavity-and-oropharyngeal-cancer/treating/surgery.html
  2. National Cancer Institute. Head and Neck Cancers.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/head-and-neck/head-neck-fact-sheet
  3. MedlinePlus. Head and Neck Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/headandneckcancer.html
  4. American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Reconstructive Procedures.
    https://www.plasticsurgery.org/reconstructive-procedures

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Head and Neck Cancer Screening

A head and neck cancer screening is a quick exam of your mouth, throat, neck, face and skin to look for early signs of cancer before you notice symptoms. It takes a few minutes and involves no needles. It is most useful for people who use tobacco or alcohol, and it is never a substitute for checking a symptom.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Most people have never had their head and neck checked for cancer, and many do not know such a check exists. A dentist may look at your mouth at a cleaning, but a full screening also checks your throat, neck, face and skin with cancer in mind.

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or skin above the collarbone. Found early, many are treated with smaller operations or less treatment, and with less change to how you eat, speak and look. A screening looks for the early signs: a sore, a patch, a lump or a change on one side.

No national guideline recommends routine screening for every adult, and the exam does not diagnose cancer. It looks for anything that needs a closer look. This page explains what the exam includes, who may benefit, what happens during it and what your results mean.

What Is a Head and Neck Cancer Screening?

A head and neck cancer screening is a physical exam for people with no symptoms. A doctor, dentist or nurse looks at and feels the areas where these cancers start, and asks about habits that raise the risk. It is a visual and hands-on check, with no blood test or scan.

Screening is different from a visit for a symptom. If you already have a sore that will not heal, a lump in your neck or a voice that has stayed hoarse, you need an exam to find the cause, and you should book one with your doctor rather than wait for a screening. Learn about these cancers on the head and neck cancers page.

Kinds of Head and Neck Cancer Screening

  • A professional head and neck exam, by a doctor, often at a screening event or a checkup.
  • An oral cancer check at the dentist, a look at the lips, gums, tongue, cheeks and the floor and roof of the mouth, often during a routine cleaning.
  • A monthly self-exam, done in front of a mirror with good light, to learn what is normal for you so a change stands out.

Why a Head and Neck Cancer Screening Is Ordered

The goal is to find cancer or a precancerous patch early, when it is smaller and easier to treat. Screening also gives you a chance to learn the warning signs and to talk about lowering your risk.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has found too little evidence to recommend for or against routine oral cancer screening in adults without symptoms. That leaves the choice to you and your doctor. Many dentists check the mouth at every visit, and some cancer teams offer screening events to reach people at higher risk.

Who Needs One

A screening may be most useful if you:

  • Smoke or have smoked, or use chewing tobacco or snuff.
  • Drink alcohol heavily, especially together with tobacco.
  • Have had a head and neck cancer before.
  • Spend a lot of time in the sun, which raises the risk of lip and skin cancer.
  • Have had radiation to the head or neck.
  • Have a parent, brother, sister or child who has had cancer. Tell your doctor, who may suggest screening earlier or more often.

HPV, a common virus, causes many cancers of the tonsils and back of the tongue. No screening test finds these early, and the HPV vaccine protects against the types that cause them.

How to Prepare

A screening needs no special preparation.

  • Remove dentures or other removable dental work when asked, so the whole mouth can be seen.
  • Bring a list of your medicines and any past cancer treatment.
  • Think about your history, including tobacco and alcohol use, since you will be asked.
  • Note any changes you have noticed, such as a sore, a lump or a change in your voice, and how long each has been there.
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What Happens During the Test

The exam takes a few minutes. Your doctor or dentist will:

  • Look at your face, head, neck and eyes for swelling, lumps or anything uneven between the two sides.
  • Check the nerves of your face by asking you to smile, frown and move your eyes.
  • Check your skin on the face, scalp, ears and neck for spots that could be skin cancer.
  • Feel your neck and under your jaw for enlarged lymph nodes or lumps.
  • Look inside your mouth and throat with a light, checking your lips, gums, tongue, cheeks and the floor and roof of your mouth, and feeling for lumps.
  • Ask a few questions about tobacco, alcohol and other risks.

If anything needs a closer look, a specialist may use a thin, flexible camera passed through the nose to see the back of the throat and voice box, usually with numbing spray.

Risks

The exam itself has no real risk. A gloved finger in the mouth can cause a brief gag.

The main drawbacks are those of any screening. A normal-looking area or a harmless sore can lead to more visits or a biopsy. And an exam can miss a cancer deep in the throat that cannot be seen, so a symptom that lasts still needs checking even after a normal screening.

Understanding Your Results

Normal. Nothing was found that needs follow-up. Keep up regular dental visits, learn the warning signs and see your doctor if a change lasts more than two or three weeks.

Something to recheck. A sore or patch that may be from an injury or infection is often looked at again in two to three weeks. Many go away.

Something to evaluate. A lump, a patch that will not heal or another concern means a visit with a specialist, often an ear, nose and throat or head and neck surgeon. The next steps may include a closer look with a small camera, a biopsy, or imaging such as a CT scan or MRI. Only a biopsy can tell whether a spot is cancer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a head and neck screening the same as a dental exam?

They overlap. A dentist checks your mouth, and a full screening also checks your throat, neck, face and skin.

How often should I be screened?

There is no set schedule for people at average risk. If you use tobacco or alcohol or have had cancer before, ask your doctor or dentist how often to be checked.

Does insurance cover it?

Prevention and screening services are covered by many plans. Check your benefits before you schedule.

What should I look for at home?

A sore, red or white patch in the mouth that does not heal, a lump in the neck, hoarseness, trouble swallowing or ear pain on one side that lasts two to three weeks.

Can screening find HPV-related throat cancer?

Not reliably, because these cancers often start deep in the tonsils. Watch for a lasting sore throat, trouble swallowing or a neck lump, and ask about the HPV vaccine.

Who Provides It and Where

Head and neck cancer screenings are done by primary care doctors, dentists, ear, nose and throat doctors and head and neck surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its head and neck cancer team holds screening events from time to time, at no charge, and offers a guide to the head and neck self-exam. Its Head and Neck Cancer Center sees patients who need a closer look, with head and neck surgeons, oncologists and a certified nurse navigator.
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Cancer

Head and neck cancer teams hold screening events and see people whose exam finds a sore, patch or lump.

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ENT / Otolaryngology

Ear, nose and throat doctors look at the throat with a small camera when a screening finds something to check.

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Conditions
Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Head and Neck Cancer Reconstruction

Head and neck cancer reconstruction rebuilds the parts of the mouth, jaw, throat, face or neck removed during cancer...

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References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Oral Cancer: Screening. 2013.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/oral-cancer-screening
  2. National Cancer Institute. Head and Neck Cancers.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/head-and-neck/head-neck-fact-sheet
  3. American Cancer Society. Can Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Cancers Be Found Early?
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/oral-cavity-and-oropharyngeal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html
  4. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer.
    https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/hpv/oropharyngeal-cancer.html

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its full size within a few months, so many people can have a large part removed safely. It can be done through small incisions or one larger one, and recovery takes a few weeks.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended a hepatectomy, you may have learned that you have a tumor in your liver, either one that started there or cancer that has spread from another organ such as the colon. Hearing that surgery is possible is often good news, because it means your team believes the tumor can be removed. This page will help you understand what that involves.

The liver is a large organ in the upper right side of the abdomen. It filters the blood, makes bile to digest fat, stores energy and makes proteins that help blood clot. It also has a rare ability: the part left behind after surgery grows back to near its original size, usually within a couple of months. That is why surgeons can often remove a large share of a healthy liver.

This page explains the kinds of hepatectomy, who is a candidate, how to prepare, what recovery is like and the risks to talk over with your surgeon.

What Is a Hepatectomy?

A hepatectomy, also called a liver resection, is an operation to remove part of the liver along with a margin of healthy tissue around the tumor. When only a portion is removed it is called a partial hepatectomy, which is what most people have. Removing the whole liver, a total hepatectomy, is done only as part of a liver transplant.

The liver is divided into eight sections, each with its own blood supply and bile drainage. This lets a surgeon remove one or more sections and leave the rest working. You are asleep under general anesthesia, and the surgeon uses ultrasound during the operation to find every tumor and map the blood vessels.

Kinds of Hepatectomy

  • Wedge resection or segmentectomy. The surgeon removes a small tumor with a rim of normal liver, or one of the liver's eight sections.
  • Lobectomy. The surgeon removes the right or left half of the liver, called a right or left hepatectomy. An extended hepatectomy removes more than half.
  • Staged liver surgery. When tumors are in both halves of the liver, the surgeon may remove them in two operations weeks apart, giving the remaining liver time to grow between them.
  • Minimally invasive hepatectomy. Many resections can be done through small incisions with a camera, with or without robotic help. See laparoscopic surgery and robotic surgery. Larger or more complex resections often use one incision under the ribs.

Why a Hepatectomy Is Performed

Surgery is often the first choice for liver tumors that can be removed completely while leaving enough healthy liver behind. It is used for:

  • Liver cancer that starts in the liver, such as hepatocellular carcinoma and cancer of the bile ducts inside the liver, when it is found early in a liver that otherwise works well. See liver cancer.
  • Cancer that has spread to the liver, most often from colon or rectal cancer, and sometimes from neuroendocrine tumors and other cancers. See colon cancer.
  • Gallbladder cancer that has grown into the nearby liver. See gallbladder cancer.
  • Noncancerous tumors that cause symptoms or could turn into cancer.

Who Is a Candidate

Surgery works best when the tumors are small, limited in number and away from the major blood vessels. Your surgeon checks how well your liver works, whether you have cirrhosis or another liver disease, and how much healthy liver would remain. Your heart, lungs and overall health matter too. If too little liver would remain, a procedure called portal vein embolization can block blood flow to the part being removed, so the rest grows first. If surgery is not the right choice, other treatments can destroy or shrink liver tumors, such as tumor ablation, tumor embolization, radioembolization and histotripsy.

How to Prepare

  • Imaging and blood tests. CT or MRI scans show the tumors and blood vessels, and blood tests check your liver function and blood clotting. Some people have a scan that measures the size of the liver that would remain.
  • Treatment before surgery. For cancer that has spread from the colon, you may have chemotherapy first to shrink the tumors.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners, supplements and herbal products, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Alcohol and smoking. Stopping both protects your liver and helps healing.
  • Food and drink. You will be told when to stop eating and drinking before surgery.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and someone to help for the first couple of weeks.
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[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

An IV and other lines are placed, and anesthesia puts you to sleep. The surgeon examines the liver with ultrasound, controls the blood flow to the section being removed, divides the liver tissue and seals the blood vessels and bile ducts. A drain may be left near the liver for a few days. The operation usually takes three to five hours or longer, depending on how much liver is removed.

After the Procedure

Some people spend the first night in an intensive care or step-down unit. Your team checks your blood counts and liver function closely while the liver starts to regrow. You get up and walk soon, begin drinking and eating within a day or two, and most people go home in about three to seven days.

Recovery

Expect to feel tired for several weeks while your liver regrows. Most people return to light activity within a few weeks and to full activity in about six to eight weeks, sooner after a minimally invasive operation. Avoid heavy lifting until your surgeon clears you, and avoid alcohol until your team says it is safe.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, vomiting blood, bleeding that will not stop, sudden confusion or unusual sleepiness, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, yellowing of the skin or eyes, a belly that is swelling, redness or drainage at the incision, nausea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking, or swelling or pain in one leg.

Risks and Complications

Your surgeon will go over how these apply to you:

  • Bleeding, during or after surgery, since the liver has a rich blood supply.
  • Bile leak, where bile seeps from the cut surface of the liver, usually treated with a drain.
  • Infection in the incision or a fluid collection in the abdomen.
  • Liver failure, when the remaining liver cannot keep up at first. This is uncommon and is why your team measures the remaining liver before surgery.
  • Fluid buildup in the belly or around the lungs, more common in people with cirrhosis.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs, and pneumonia.

Results of a Hepatectomy

When all the tumors can be removed, a hepatectomy offers many people with early liver cancer, or with limited spread from colon cancer, a real chance of long-term control or cure. Your pathology report shows whether the edges of the removed tissue are clear of cancer. Because liver cancer can return in the remaining liver or elsewhere, you will have regular scans and blood tests afterward, and some people have chemotherapy or other treatment after recovery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will my liver really grow back?

A healthy liver regrows to near its original size, usually within a couple of months. A liver with cirrhosis regrows more slowly, which is part of why your surgeon measures it carefully before surgery.

How much of my liver can be removed?

In a healthy liver, surgeons can often remove up to about two thirds. With cirrhosis, they leave more behind.

Can I have a hepatectomy if I have cirrhosis?

Sometimes. It depends on how well your liver works and the pressure in its blood vessels. If surgery is not safe, a liver transplant or treatments that destroy the tumor may be options.

Will I need chemotherapy too?

Some people do, before or after surgery, especially when cancer has spread from the colon. Your medical oncologist and surgeon plan the order with you.

What should I eat while I recover?

Eat regular meals with enough protein to help your liver rebuild, drink plenty of fluids and avoid alcohol until your team says it is safe.

Who Provides It and Where

A hepatectomy is performed by liver surgeons, also called hepatobiliary surgeons, and surgical oncologists, working with gastroenterologists, radiologists and medical and radiation oncologists.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Liver surgeons who remove liver tumors, including staged surgery for cancer that has spread to both halves of the liver, as part of a team that also offers ablation, embolization and radioembolization.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators who coordinate your tests and appointments, with palliative medicine and nutrition specialists to support you through treatment.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who give chemotherapy before or after liver surgery for cancer that has spread from the colon.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Related Service Lines
Cancer

Liver surgeons remove liver tumors, whether they started in the liver or spread there from the colon.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Liver specialists treat cirrhosis and hepatitis and judge whether the liver is healthy enough for surgery.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Interventional radiologists shrink tumors or grow the remaining liver before surgery through an artery or vein.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Gallbladder Cancer

Gallbladder cancer starts in the gallbladder, the small organ under the liver that stores bile. It is rare, and it is often...

Learn More About Gallbladder Cancer
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Treatments
Liver Transplant

A liver transplant replaces a liver that no longer works, or one with early cancer, with a healthy liver from a donor. It is...

Learn More About Liver Transplant
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation
Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor...

Learn More About Tumor Embolization
Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and...

Learn More About Radioembolization
Histotripsy

Histotripsy uses focused pulses of sound, sent from outside your body, to break apart a tumor in the liver. There are no...

Learn More About Histotripsy
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Liver Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/adult-liver-treatment-pdq
  2. National Cancer Institute. Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colon-treatment-pdq
  3. MedlinePlus. Liver Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/livercancer.html
  4. MedlinePlus. Liver metastases.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000277.htm
  5. National Cancer Institute. Surgery for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/surgery

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

HIPEC

HIPEC, or hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, treats cancer that has spread to the lining of the abdomen. The surgeon first removes all the tumor that can be seen, then bathes the inside of the abdomen with heated chemotherapy during the same operation. It is a major operation for carefully chosen patients.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has mentioned HIPEC, you have likely learned that cancer has reached the peritoneum, the thin lining of the abdomen and the organs inside it. That can be hard news to hear. HIPEC gives some people with this kind of spread a treatment aimed squarely at it, and your team will take time to see whether it fits your situation.

Cancer cells can spread to the peritoneum from cancers of the appendix, colon, rectum, stomach and ovary, or start there, as in peritoneal mesothelioma. Chemotherapy given through a vein reaches the peritoneum poorly, because the lining forms a barrier between the bloodstream and the abdominal cavity. HIPEC places a high dose of chemotherapy directly on the surfaces where the cancer grows, while much less of it reaches the rest of the body.

HIPEC is almost always paired with cytoreductive surgery, an operation to remove every tumor the surgeon can see. The two steps happen in one long operation. This page explains how the treatment works, who may be a candidate, how to prepare and what recovery is like.

What Is HIPEC?

HIPEC stands for hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Hyperthermic means heated, and intraperitoneal means inside the abdominal cavity. It is the second step of a two-step operation:

  1. Cytoreductive surgery. The surgeon removes all the visible tumor in the abdomen. This often means stripping away areas of the peritoneum, and it may mean removing organs or parts of organs the cancer has reached, such as the gallbladder, spleen or a section of the small or large intestine. The more completely the visible tumor is removed, the better HIPEC works.
  2. Heated chemotherapy. A chemotherapy solution warmed to a few degrees above body temperature is circulated through the abdomen for about 90 to 120 minutes. Heat helps the medicine soak into tumor cells left behind that are too small to see. The solution is then drained and the abdomen is closed.

You are asleep under general anesthesia for the whole operation. You lie on a cooling blanket to keep your body temperature safe, and the team rocks you from side to side so the chemotherapy reaches every surface.

Kinds of HIPEC

  • Closed technique. The surgeon closes the abdomen temporarily while the heated chemotherapy circulates, then reopens it to drain the fluid.
  • Open technique. The surgeon keeps the abdomen open and moves the fluid by hand so it reaches every area.
  • Laparoscopic HIPEC. For some people who are not candidates for the full operation, heated chemotherapy can be given through small incisions, most often to control fluid buildup in the abdomen.

Your surgeon chooses the technique and the chemotherapy medicine based on the type of cancer and how far it has spread.

Why HIPEC Is Performed

HIPEC treats cancer that has spread within the abdomen but not to distant organs. It is used for:

  • Appendix tumors, its most common use, especially pseudomyxoma peritonei, a condition in which a tumor fills the abdomen with thick, mucus-like material. See appendix cancers.
  • Colon and rectal cancer that has spread to the peritoneum in selected patients. See colon cancer.
  • Peritoneal mesothelioma and other cancers that start in the peritoneum. See peritoneal carcinomatosis.
  • Some ovarian and stomach cancers. See ovarian cancer and stomach cancer.

Who Is a Candidate

Your team looks at several things together. The type of tumor matters, because HIPEC works far better for some cell types than others. The amount of disease matters, because the treatment works best when the surgeon can remove all visible tumor. Your overall health and fitness, how well your heart, lungs, liver and kidneys work, and your nutrition all count, because the operation is long and recovery is demanding. With a favorable tumor type, a surgeon may operate even when the disease is widespread; with a less favorable type, only when the amount of disease is small. Scans, a review of your tissue and sometimes a short laparoscopy help answer these questions.

How to Prepare

  • Tests before surgery. You may have CT or MRI scans, blood tests, and checks of your heart and lungs.
  • Nutrition. Eating well before surgery helps recovery. A dietitian may suggest protein drinks or other support if you have lost weight.
  • Strength. Walking every day and stopping smoking both help your body handle the operation.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Bowel preparation. You may be asked to clear your bowel the day before.
  • Planning for time away. Arrange help at home, time off work and someone to stay with you after you leave the hospital.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

The full operation often lasts many hours, and in complex cases up to about 14. Your family can wait nearby, and the team will update them during and after surgery.

After the Procedure

Most people spend the first day or more in an intensive care unit, then move to a surgical floor. You may have tubes for a while, such as a drain in the belly, a tube through the nose to rest the stomach and a urinary catheter. You start walking with help soon, and you return to eating slowly as your bowels wake up. Hospital stays often last one to two weeks or longer.

Recovery

Full recovery often takes two to three months. Tiredness is common, and appetite and energy come back gradually. Avoid heavy lifting until your surgeon clears you. Some people have chemotherapy given through a vein after they recover, depending on the cancer type.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for a fever in the weeks after HIPEC, because the chemotherapy can lower blood counts; chest pain or trouble breathing; vomiting blood; bleeding that will not stop; or fainting. Call your care team the same day for redness, swelling or drainage at the incision, nausea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking, no bowel movement or gas for more than a day, or swelling or pain in one leg.

Risks and Complications

Cytoreductive surgery with HIPEC is a major operation, and your surgeon will go over the risks as they apply to you:

  • Bleeding and infection in the incision or inside the abdomen.
  • A leak where sections of bowel were joined, which may need a drain or another operation.
  • Slow return of bowel function and trouble eating for a time.
  • Blood clots in the legs or lungs.
  • Chemotherapy effects, such as lower blood counts or strain on the kidneys, usually milder than with chemotherapy through a vein.
  • Breathing problems, such as pneumonia or fluid around the lungs.
  • An ostomy, if a section of bowel has to be removed and cannot be reconnected right away. See colostomy.

Results of HIPEC

For carefully selected people, especially those with pseudomyxoma peritonei or low-grade appendix tumors, removing all visible tumor and following it with HIPEC can control the cancer for many years and, for some, clear it. For other cancers, the goal may be longer survival and better control of symptoms such as fluid buildup. Results depend most on the type of tumor and on whether all visible tumor could be removed. After recovery, you will have regular scans and blood tests to watch for any return of cancer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is HIPEC the same as regular chemotherapy?

It uses some of the same medicines, but they go directly into the abdomen during surgery, at a higher strength on the surfaces where the cancer grows. Depending on the tumor type, one dose in the operating room may be all you need.

Will I lose my hair?

Hair loss is uncommon after HIPEC, because most of the medicine stays in the abdomen. If you also have chemotherapy through a vein, your oncologist will tell you what to expect from it.

How do I know if I am a candidate?

Your surgeon will review your scans, the type of tumor and your overall health. Sometimes a short laparoscopy is needed to see how much disease is present before deciding.

Will I need chemotherapy before or after HIPEC?

Some people do, depending on the type of cancer. Your surgeon and medical oncologist plan the order of treatments with you.

Can I get a second opinion?

Yes. Because HIPEC is a major decision, a second opinion is a reasonable step, and your team can help send your records.

Who Provides It and Where

HIPEC is performed by surgical oncologists trained in cytoreductive surgery, working with anesthesiologists, medical oncologists and critical care teams.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Surgeons who offer cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC when a cancer of the colon, rectum or stomach has spread within the abdomen.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators and support services that help you and your family through a long surgery and recovery, and a second opinion when you want one.
  • Orlando Health Colon and Rectal Institute. Colon and rectal surgeons, including the St. Petersburg team, who work with the Cancer Institute and offer cytoreductive surgery and HIPEC for colon and appendix cancer that has spread in the abdomen.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Cancer Care Locations
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Surgical oncologists remove visible tumor in the abdomen, then give heated chemotherapy there in the same operation.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons offer HIPEC when colon or appendix cancer has spread to the lining of the abdomen.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Women's

Gynecologic oncologists may use HIPEC for some ovarian cancers that have spread within the abdomen.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or...

Learn More About Ovarian Cancer
Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis means cancer has spread to the peritoneum, the thin lining of the belly. It most often comes from...

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Stomach Cancer

Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, starts in the lining of the stomach. Its early signs, like indigestion or...

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Treatments
Colostomy

A colostomy is an operation that brings the end of the colon to a small opening on your belly, called a stoma, so stool...

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Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

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Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

Learn More About Colorectal Cancer Screening

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Hyperthermia to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/hyperthermia
  2. National Cancer Institute. Colon Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/colorectal/patient/colon-treatment-pdq
  3. National Cancer Institute. Treatment for Mesothelioma (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/mesothelioma/patient/mesothelioma-treatment-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Histotripsy

Histotripsy uses focused pulses of sound, sent from outside your body, to break apart a tumor in the liver. There are no incisions, no needles and no radiation. You are asleep for it, it often takes about an hour, and many people go home the same day.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has mentioned histotripsy, you may be hearing the word for the first time. It is one of the newest ways to treat a tumor in the liver, and it is natural to want to know exactly what it involves before you agree to it. This page explains how it works, who it may suit, what the day looks like and what to expect afterward.

Histotripsy is a way to destroy a liver tumor without surgery. A treatment head placed on the skin of your belly sends short, powerful pulses of ultrasound into the tumor. The pulses create a cloud of tiny bubbles inside the tumor that breaks its tissue apart, while the tissue around it is largely spared. Your body then clears away the broken-down tissue over the following weeks.

It can treat cancer that started in the liver and cancer that has spread to the liver from another part of the body. It can also be used along with other liver treatments, before or after them, and it does not close the door on any of them.

What Is Histotripsy?

Histotripsy is a noninvasive procedure that destroys tumor tissue with focused sound waves. The word comes from "histo," meaning tissue, and "tripsy," meaning to break apart.

The device has a treatment head that rests on your belly over the tumor, with a soft, water-filled membrane between it and your skin so the sound travels into the body. The sound pulses are very short and very strong. Where they meet inside the tumor, they make gas bubbles that are already present in the tissue expand and collapse in a fraction of a second. This bubble cloud breaks the tumor cells apart. The doctor moves the focus point through the tumor, piece by piece, while watching on ultrasound.

Histotripsy is different from other ways of destroying a tumor without surgery:

  • It uses no heat or cold. Tumor ablation destroys tumors with heat or freezing through a probe placed in the tumor. Histotripsy breaks the tissue apart mechanically and needs no probe.
  • It uses no radiation. That sets it apart from radiation therapy and radioembolization.
  • It needs no needle or incision. The treatment passes through the skin.

The US Food and Drug Administration cleared histotripsy for destroying liver tumors in 2023, after more than 20 years of research.

Why Histotripsy Is Performed

Histotripsy is used to destroy tumors in the liver, including:

  • Primary liver cancer, most often hepatocellular carcinoma, a cancer that starts in the liver. Learn more about liver cancer.
  • Cancer that has spread to the liver from another organ, such as the colon or rectum. See colon cancer and rectal cancer.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors that have spread to the liver, in some cases. See neuroendocrine tumors.

It may be part of a plan that also includes surgery to remove part of the liver, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, tumor embolization or other treatments.

Who Is a Candidate

Anyone with a tumor in the liver may be considered. Whether histotripsy suits you depends mostly on whether the sound can reach the tumor clearly. A tumor the doctor can see well on ultrasound, without ribs, bowel gas or a major blood vessel in the way, is more likely to be a good fit. The number and size of the tumors, your liver function and your overall health also count. Your liver team will review your scans with you and talk through how histotripsy compares with the other choices for your situation.

How to Prepare

  • A consultation first. You meet the doctor to go over your scans, ask questions and confirm that histotripsy is a good fit.
  • Scans and blood tests. A recent CT scan or MRI and blood work help plan the treatment.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • Food and drink. You may be given diet instructions and asked not to eat or drink for a set number of hours, because you will have general anesthesia.
  • A ride home. Arrange for someone to drive you home and stay with you that evening.

Your team will give you written instructions that fit your situation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

On the day of treatment, your doctor uses ultrasound to confirm the size and location of the tumor. You then receive general anesthesia, so you are asleep and feel nothing. Anesthesia also keeps you perfectly still and lets the team control your breathing, which helps the treatment stay precise.

The treatment head is positioned on your skin over the tumor. The doctor plans the area to treat on the ultrasound screen, and the device works through it while more ultrasound images track progress. The procedure often takes about an hour. More tumors, or a tumor in a harder-to-reach spot, can extend it to several hours.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area. Some pain in the belly is common at first, and some people run a mild fever. Most people go home the same day. Some stay one night in the hospital, depending on how they feel.

Recovery

Most people return to their normal activities within a few days. Tiredness and soreness usually ease quickly.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing, vomiting blood, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for belly pain that is getting worse, a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, yellowing of your skin or eyes, or nausea that keeps you from drinking.

Risks and Complications

Histotripsy is generally well tolerated, and serious problems are uncommon. Your doctor will talk through the risks as they apply to you. They include:

  • Belly pain, fever and tiredness for a short time after treatment.
  • Bleeding in or near the liver.
  • Injury to nearby organs, such as the bowel, stomach or diaphragm, if they lie close to the treated area.
  • Problems with blood vessels or bile ducts near the tumor, including a blood clot in a liver vein.
  • Reactions to anesthesia.

Because histotripsy is new, research on how well it controls tumors over many years is still under way. Your team will explain what is known for a tumor like yours.

Results of Histotripsy

The treated tissue breaks down and is absorbed by your body over the weeks and months that follow. Your care team checks the area with a CT scan or MRI, usually within the first couple of months, to see whether the whole tumor was treated. Follow-up scans then continue at regular intervals. If a tumor remains or a new one appears, histotripsy can often be repeated, and other treatments remain open to you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does histotripsy hurt?

You are asleep under general anesthesia during the procedure, so you feel nothing. Afterward you may have some belly pain or a fever, which usually passes within a few days.

Why do I need general anesthesia for a treatment with no incision?

The treatment is very precise. Anesthesia keeps you still and lets the team control your breathing, so the liver moves as little as possible while the sound is focused on the tumor.

Will I need to stay in the hospital?

Most people go home the same day. If you have pain afterward, your doctor may keep you overnight to manage it.

Can I have other treatments later?

Yes. Histotripsy has been used before and after other treatments, including surgery, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Talk with your doctor about how it fits your plan.

How do I know if I am a candidate?

If you have a tumor in the liver, you may be a candidate. Your liver specialist will look at where the tumor is and whether ultrasound can see it clearly, then talk through your options with you.

Who Provides It and Where

Histotripsy is performed by doctors trained in the procedure, working within a team that treats liver tumors, including liver surgeons, interventional radiologists, gastroenterologists and medical oncologists.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its liver cancer team offers histotripsy alongside surgery, ablation, embolization and other treatments for cancer that starts in the liver and cancer that has spread there.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its nurse navigators help you arrange a consultation and coordinate care with the rest of your team.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Liver cancer teams weigh histotripsy beside surgery, ablation and embolization when planning care for a liver tumor.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Liver specialists check liver function and manage cirrhosis or hepatitis before and after a tumor is treated.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

CT and MRI scans plan the treatment, and follow-up scans show whether the whole tumor was destroyed.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

Learn More About Neuroendocrine Tumors
Treatments
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and...

Learn More About Radioembolization
Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

Learn More About Hepatectomy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Liver Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/adult-liver-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Ablation and Embolization for Liver Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/liver-cancer/treating/tumor-ablation.html

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It treats many breast and prostate cancers and some uterine cancers, given as pills or shots, often for years, to shrink a cancer, slow it or help keep it from returning.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended hormone therapy, you may be wondering whether it is the same as the hormones some people take for menopause. It is close to the opposite. Hormone therapy for cancer takes hormones away from cancer cells that depend on them, and for many people it is a pill a day or a shot every few months.

Some cancers grow in response to the body's own hormones. Many breast cancers are fed by estrogen or progesterone, and most prostate cancers are fed by testosterone and other male hormones. Lowering those hormones, or keeping them from attaching to cancer cells, can shrink these cancers, slow them and lower the chance they come back.

Hormone therapy is often one part of a plan that includes surgery, radiation therapy or other medicines. It can last for months or for many years. This page explains how it works, the kinds, who it helps, how to get ready, what treatment is like, the side effects and the questions people ask most.

What Is Hormone Therapy and How Does It Work?

Hormone therapy, also called endocrine therapy, treats cancers that use hormones to grow. Cancer cells of this kind have receptors, like locks, that a hormone fits into like a key. When the hormone attaches, it signals the cell to grow.

Hormone therapy works in one of two ways:

  • It lowers the amount of the hormone the body makes, so there is less to feed the cancer.
  • It blocks the hormone from attaching to cancer cells, so the signal never arrives.

Before recommending it, your care team tests the cancer. For breast cancer, a pathologist checks the tumor tissue for estrogen and progesterone receptors. A cancer that has them is called hormone receptor positive. Prostate cancer almost always depends on male hormones, called androgens, at least at first.

Hormone therapy reaches cancer cells throughout the body, which is why it can treat a cancer that has spread as well as help keep one from returning.

Kinds of Hormone Therapy

For breast cancer:

  • Tamoxifen blocks estrogen from attaching to breast cancer cells. It is used before and after menopause.
  • Aromatase inhibitors, such as anastrozole, letrozole and exemestane, lower the estrogen the body makes after menopause.
  • Ovarian suppression stops the ovaries from making estrogen before menopause, with a monthly or every-three-month shot such as leuprolide or goserelin, or with surgery.
  • Fulvestrant, a shot that destroys estrogen receptors, is used for breast cancer that has spread.

For prostate cancer:

  • Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) lowers testosterone, most often with shots such as leuprolide, given every one to six months, or degarelix, given monthly. Surgery to remove the testicles does the same thing and is used less often.
  • Androgen receptor blockers and newer medicines such as abiraterone, enzalutamide, apalutamide and darolutamide block testosterone from working or stop the body from making it elsewhere. They are often added to ADT.

For other cancers: progestin medicines treat some uterine cancers, and hormone therapy is used for some ovarian, thyroid and neuroendocrine tumors.

Some people take hormone therapy with a targeted therapy, such as a CDK4/6 inhibitor for breast cancer, which helps it work better.

What Hormone Therapy Is Used For

By goal:

  • To lower the chance of the cancer returning after surgery, often for five to 10 years for breast cancer.
  • To shrink a tumor before surgery or radiation.
  • To make radiation work better, as with some prostate cancers.
  • To control a cancer that has spread and ease its symptoms, sometimes for years.
  • To lower the risk of breast cancer in some people at high risk.

By condition: hormone receptor positive breast cancer, prostate cancer, some uterine cancers and ovarian cancers, thyroid cancer after surgery, and some neuroendocrine tumors.

Hormone therapy only helps cancers that respond to hormones. Breast cancers without hormone receptors, such as triple negative breast cancer, are treated in other ways.

Before You Start

Testing the cancer. Your care team confirms that your cancer is hormone sensitive, from the biopsy or surgery tissue for breast cancer or from blood tests and scans for prostate cancer.

Your health history. Tell your team about blood clots, stroke, heart disease, bone thinning, liver problems and any chance of pregnancy. These shape which medicine is safest for you.

Baseline tests. You may have a bone density scan before starting an aromatase inhibitor or ADT, and blood tests for cholesterol, blood sugar and liver function.

Your medicines. List every medicine and supplement you take, since some interact. Tamoxifen, for example, does not mix well with certain antidepressants.

Pregnancy. Hormone therapy can harm a developing baby. If you could become pregnant, ask your team about reliable birth control that does not use hormones.

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What to Expect

Pills are taken at home, usually once a day. Set a routine so you do not miss doses.

Shots are given in your doctor's office or an infusion center, monthly or every few months. Some, such as leuprolide, can be given at home by a nurse, or by you or a caregiver after training.

How long it lasts. For breast cancer after surgery, five years is common and some people continue to 10. For prostate cancer, ADT may be given for six months to three years with radiation, or long term for cancer that has spread.

Follow-up. You will have regular visits, blood tests such as PSA for prostate cancer, and bone density checks. Tell your team about side effects; switching medicines often helps.

Get care right away for chest pain or trouble breathing: call 911. Call your care team the same day for swelling, warmth or pain in one leg, new vaginal bleeding after menopause while taking tamoxifen, or a new bone pain.

Side Effects and Risks

Side effects come from lowering hormones and differ by medicine. Many are manageable, and most ease when treatment ends.

  • Hot flashes and night sweats, the most common.
  • Tiredness and mood changes.
  • Joint and muscle aches, especially with aromatase inhibitors.
  • Bone thinning, which raises fracture risk with aromatase inhibitors and ADT. Exercise, calcium, vitamin D and bone medicines help.
  • Sexual changes, including lower desire, vaginal dryness and erectile problems.
  • Weight gain, loss of muscle and changes in cholesterol and blood sugar with ADT, which can affect the heart.
  • Breast tenderness or growth in men taking some prostate cancer medicines.
  • Blood clots and, rarely, uterine cancer with tamoxifen.

Your team weighs these risks against the benefit for your cancer and checks for them at each visit.

Benefits: What It Can Do

For hormone receptor positive breast cancer, taking hormone therapy after surgery lowers the chance of the cancer returning. For prostate cancer that has spread, ADT shrinks or slows the cancer, often for years, and adding newer medicines can extend that control. For many people it is the treatment they stay on the longest, with fewer hospital visits than other treatments. Your team will tell you what it can do for your cancer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the same as hormone replacement therapy for menopause?

No. Menopause hormone therapy adds estrogen. Hormone therapy for cancer lowers or blocks hormones the cancer needs.

What if I miss a pill?

Take it when you remember that day, then go back to your usual schedule. Do not take two at once. Ask your pharmacist about your specific medicine.

Can I stop if the side effects are hard?

Talk with your team before stopping. Many side effects can be eased, or you can switch to another medicine in the same group.

Will hormone therapy affect my fertility?

It can, and pregnancy is not safe during treatment. Ask about fertility preservation before you start if you may want children.

What happens if the cancer stops responding?

Some cancers learn to grow without hormones over time. Your team then has other options, including other hormone medicines, chemotherapy and targeted therapy.

Who Provides It and Where

Hormone therapy is prescribed by medical oncologists, and for prostate cancer also by urologists and radiation oncologists, who follow you through treatment.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its breast and prostate cancer teams prescribe hormone therapy and follow you through it, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida. Shots are given at its infusion centers, and nurse navigators help coordinate care.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Exercise, yoga and other support can ease hot flashes, joint aches and the stress of long-term treatment.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
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Cancer

Oncologists prescribe the pills and shots that lower or block the hormones feeding breast, prostate and uterine cancers.

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Urology

Urologists start and follow hormone therapy for prostate cancer, tracking PSA levels to see how well it is working.

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Women's

Gynecologists watch for bleeding and other changes in the uterus in women taking tamoxifen for breast cancer.

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Conditions
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

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Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

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Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

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Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer starts in the ovaries, the fallopian tubes or the lining of the belly. Its early signs, like bloating or...

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Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

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Spinal Tumors

A spinal tumor is a growth in or near the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and some are not, and many...

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Treatments
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

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Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

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Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your...

Learn More About Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Hormone Therapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/hormone-therapy
  2. American Cancer Society. Hormone Therapy for Breast Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/treatment/hormone-therapy-for-breast-cancer.html
  3. American Cancer Society. Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/prostate-cancer/treatment/hormone-therapy.html
  4. MedlinePlus. Hormone Therapy for Breast Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000910.htm

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and treats many cancers, including melanoma, lung, kidney, bladder and some breast cancers. Its side effects differ from chemotherapy and need prompt attention.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your oncologist has recommended immunotherapy, you may have heard it described as a breakthrough, and you may be wondering what it will actually be like. For most people, it is an IV infusion every few weeks at an outpatient center, and many keep up much of their daily life during treatment.

Your immune system protects you from germs, and it can also attack cancer cells. Cancer cells often find ways to hide from it or switch it off. Immunotherapy takes those defenses away or gives the immune system extra strength, so it can recognize the cancer and fight it.

Immunotherapy does not work for every cancer or every person, and it is often given with surgery, chemotherapy or radiation. Its side effects are different from chemotherapy's, because they come from an immune system that is working harder. This page explains how it works, the kinds, what it treats, how to get ready, what treatment is like, the side effects and what to ask your team.

What Is Immunotherapy and How Does It Work?

Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses your immune system to fight cancer. Chemotherapy attacks cancer cells directly. Immunotherapy works through your immune cells, especially T cells, the white blood cells that find and destroy cells that do not belong.

Your immune system has built-in brakes, called checkpoints, that keep it from attacking healthy tissue. Many cancers press on those brakes to avoid being attacked. Some immunotherapy medicines release the brakes. Others mark cancer cells so the immune system can find them, or add immune cells trained in a lab to attack the cancer.

Because the immune system can remember what it has learned, the response to immunotherapy can last a long time in some people, even after treatment ends.

Kinds of Immunotherapy

  • Checkpoint inhibitors release the immune system's brakes. They include PD-1 blockers such as pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo), PD-L1 blockers such as atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and durvalumab (Imfinzi), and CTLA-4 blockers such as ipilimumab (Yervoy). Some are given together.
  • CAR T-cell therapy collects your T cells, changes them in a lab to recognize your cancer and returns them by infusion. It treats some leukemias, lymphomas and myeloma. See bone marrow transplant, where the same programs give it.
  • Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy grows immune cells taken from your own tumor in a lab and returns billions of them in a one-time treatment, for some melanomas. See TIL therapy.
  • Monoclonal antibodies are lab-made proteins that attach to cancer cells. Some flag the cells for the immune system; others deliver medicine to them.
  • Oncolytic virus therapy injects a virus changed in the lab into a tumor, where it destroys cancer cells and alerts the immune system.
  • Cancer vaccines and immune boosters, such as BCG placed in the bladder for early bladder cancer, or interleukin and interferon medicines.

What Immunotherapy Is Used For

By goal:

  • To shrink or control a cancer that has spread.
  • To lower the chance of a cancer returning after surgery.
  • To shrink a tumor before surgery, sometimes with chemotherapy.
  • To treat a blood cancer that has come back after other treatment, as with CAR T-cell therapy.

By condition: immunotherapy is used for melanoma and other skin cancers, lung cancer, kidney and bladder cancer, head and neck cancers, triple negative breast cancer, some colon, rectal, stomach, esophageal and liver cancers, cervical and uterine cancers, lymphoma and some sarcomas.

Whether it fits your cancer can depend on tests of the tumor, such as PD-L1 levels or certain gene changes.

Before You Start

Testing your tumor. Your oncologist may test the tumor tissue for markers that predict whether immunotherapy is likely to help.

Your health history. Tell your team about any autoimmune condition, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, Crohn's disease or thyroid disease, and about any organ transplant. Immunotherapy can make these flare, though many people with them can still be treated safely.

Baseline tests. Blood tests check your thyroid, liver, kidneys and blood sugar before treatment, so changes can be found early.

Your medicines. List every medicine and supplement. Steroids and other medicines that weaken the immune system can affect how immunotherapy works.

A wallet card. Many programs give you a card saying you are on immunotherapy, to show any doctor or emergency room you visit.

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What to Expect

Infusions. Most checkpoint inhibitors are given by IV over about 30 to 60 minutes, every two, three, four or six weeks. Your blood work is checked before each one. Some are now given as a shot under the skin.

How long. Treatment for cancer that has spread may continue for up to two years if it is working and you tolerate it. After surgery, a course often lasts about a year.

Cell therapies such as CAR T-cell and TIL therapy are different: a one-time infusion after a few days to a week of chemotherapy, then close monitoring in or near the hospital for several weeks.

Checking how it works. Scans are repeated every few months. Sometimes a tumor looks larger on an early scan before it shrinks, because immune cells are gathering in it. Your team reads the scans with that in mind.

When to get help. For trouble breathing or chest pain, call 911. Call your care team the same day for diarrhea or belly pain, a new cough, a rash, yellowing skin or eyes, very dark urine, severe headache or unusual tiredness. Side effects can appear months after treatment, so mention immunotherapy to any doctor you see.

Side Effects and Risks

Immunotherapy side effects happen when the immune system attacks healthy organs as well as cancer. Many people have mild ones or none. When they are found early, most can be treated, often with steroids, and treatment may pause.

  • Tiredness, the most common.
  • Skin rash and itching.
  • Diarrhea or colitis, inflammation of the bowel.
  • Thyroid changes, which may need daily thyroid medicine, sometimes for life.
  • Pneumonitis, inflammation of the lungs, with cough or shortness of breath.
  • Hepatitis, inflammation of the liver.
  • Less often, problems with the adrenal or pituitary glands, kidneys, heart, nerves or joints, and type 1 diabetes.
  • Infusion reactions, with chills or a rash during the infusion.
  • Cytokine release syndrome and nerve effects after CAR T-cell therapy, which the team watches for closely.

Benefits: What It Can Do

For some cancers that have spread, such as melanoma and some lung cancers, immunotherapy can shrink the cancer and keep it controlled for years, and some people have long remissions. After surgery, it can lower the chance of some cancers returning. Not every cancer responds, and your team will tell you what it can do for yours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is immunotherapy a kind of chemotherapy?

No. Chemotherapy attacks cancer cells directly. Immunotherapy helps your immune system attack them. You may receive both.

Will I lose my hair?

Hair loss is uncommon with immunotherapy alone. If you also have chemotherapy, ask about that medicine.

How will I know if it is working?

Your team uses scans every few months and how you feel. Some responses take several months to show.

Can I work during treatment?

Many people do. Infusions take a few hours, including the wait, and many people feel well between them.

What happens if I have a side effect?

Your team may pause treatment and give medicine, often steroids, to ease the immune reaction. Many people restart once it clears.

Who Provides It and Where

Immunotherapy is prescribed by medical oncologists, or hematologist-oncologists for blood cancers, and given by oncology nurses at infusion centers.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its medical oncologists give immunotherapy for the cancers its specialty centers treat, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida. Its melanoma and skin cancer team offers checkpoint blockers and oncolytic virus therapy for melanoma, skin cancer and sarcoma, and TIL therapy for melanoma, and its Bone Marrow Transplant and Cellular Therapy program gives CAR T-cell therapy for blood cancers. Nurse navigators help coordinate your care.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its team includes immunotherapy among the treatments for cancers of the colon and rectum, liver and bile ducts, pancreas and stomach.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that eases stress and tiredness during treatment.
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Cancer

Oncologists give checkpoint inhibitors and cell therapies that help the immune system find and attack cancer.

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Dermatology

Dermatologists treat the rashes and itching immunotherapy can cause and care for the skin cancers it treats.

Learn More About Dermatology
Endocrinology

Endocrinologists treat the thyroid, adrenal and pituitary problems immunotherapy can trigger, often with hormone pills.

Learn More About Endocrinology
Conditions
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

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Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and...

Learn More About Cardiotoxicity
Treatments
Bone Marrow Transplant

A bone marrow transplant, also called a stem cell transplant, replaces diseased or damaged bone marrow with healthy...

Learn More About Bone Marrow Transplant
Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your...

Learn More About Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Immunotherapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunotherapy
  2. American Cancer Society. Cancer Immunotherapy.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/immunotherapy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Immunotherapy for Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000906.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Immunotherapy Side Effects.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunotherapy/side-effects

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Liver Transplant

A liver transplant replaces a liver that no longer works, or one with early cancer, with a healthy liver from a donor. It is a major operation with a careful evaluation beforehand, and most people who receive one go on to live active lives for many years.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the GI Cancer Center. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If a doctor has raised a liver transplant with you or someone you love, you may be feeling many things at once: worry about the operation, uncertainty about the waiting list, and hope. Those are all reasonable. This page explains what a transplant is, who it helps, how the evaluation and waiting period work, and what life looks like afterward.

A liver transplant is surgery to remove a diseased liver and replace it with a healthy one. The new liver comes either from a person who has died and chose to donate organs, or, in some cases, from a living person who gives part of their liver. The liver is the one internal organ that can regrow to near its full size, so both the donor's remaining liver and the transplanted portion regrow over the following weeks and months.

A transplant is considered when the liver has failed or is failing and other treatments can no longer help, and for some people with early liver cancer whose liver is too damaged for other surgery. After a transplant, you take medicines every day to keep your body from rejecting the new liver.

What Is a Liver Transplant?

A liver transplant takes out a liver that is not working and puts a healthy donor liver, or part of one, in its place. Your liver does hundreds of jobs: it filters the blood, makes bile to digest fat, stores energy and makes proteins that help your blood clot. When it fails, those jobs stop, and a transplant can restore them.

The operation is done at a transplant center by a team that includes transplant surgeons, hepatologists (liver specialists), anesthesiologists, transplant coordinators, nurses, social workers, dietitians and pharmacists. The same team follows you for the rest of your life after the transplant.

Kinds of Liver Transplant

  • Deceased donor transplant. The whole liver comes from a person who has died and donated their organs. This is the most common kind. In some cases one donor liver is split to help two people, often an adult and a child.
  • Living donor transplant. A healthy adult, often a family member or friend, gives part of their liver. The donor goes through a full evaluation of their own, and both livers regrow. A living donor can shorten the wait for a new liver.

Why a Liver Transplant Is Performed

A liver transplant is considered when the liver can no longer do its work and other treatments have not helped. Common reasons include:

  • Cirrhosis, heavy scarring of the liver, from long-term hepatitis B or C, alcohol-associated liver disease, or fatty liver disease (metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease).
  • Diseases of the bile ducts, such as primary biliary cholangitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis, and biliary atresia in children.
  • Inherited liver diseases, such as Wilson disease, hemochromatosis and alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency.
  • Acute liver failure, when a liver that was healthy stops working within days or weeks, for example after an overdose of acetaminophen or a severe infection.
  • Liver cancer. For some people with early hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common cancer that starts in the liver, a transplant removes the cancer and the diseased liver together. It is usually offered when the tumors are few and small, have not grown into blood vessels and have not spread, and the rest of the liver is too damaged for surgery to remove part of the liver. Learn more about liver cancer.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if your liver is failing and you are healthy enough in other ways to go through a major operation and recover. The transplant team reviews your heart, lungs, kidneys, other illnesses, and your support at home. People who drink alcohol or use other substances are asked to stop and stay stopped. With liver cancer, treatments such as tumor ablation, tumor embolization or radioembolization may be used to keep the cancer in check while you wait.

How to Prepare

  • The evaluation. Over several visits you have blood tests, imaging such as a CT scan, heart and lung tests, and meetings with the surgeon, hepatologist, social worker, dietitian and financial counselor.
  • The waiting list. If you are approved, you join the national waiting list. Your place is set mostly by your MELD score, which uses blood tests to measure how sick your liver is, so people in most need are offered a liver first. Your score is updated as your health changes.
  • Staying ready. Keep your phone on, have a bag packed and a plan for getting to the transplant center quickly, because a liver can become available at any hour.
  • Staying as healthy as you can. Follow your diet, take your medicines, keep every appointment and stay active as your team advises.
  • A support person. Choose someone who can help you through the hospital stay and the first weeks at home.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You receive general anesthesia and are asleep the whole time. The surgeon makes an incision across the upper belly, removes the diseased liver, and connects the new liver to your blood vessels and bile duct. The operation often takes 6 to 12 hours.

After the Procedure

You wake in the intensive care unit, often with a breathing tube for a short time and several drains and lines. Most people move to a regular hospital room within a few days and go home after about one to three weeks. You start anti-rejection medicines right away, and your team teaches you how to take them.

Recovery

Recovery takes several months. You have frequent clinic visits and blood tests at first, which become less frequent over time. Most people return to work and usual activities within three to six months, avoiding heavy lifting until the incision has healed.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing, vomiting blood, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your transplant team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, yellowing of your skin or eyes, dark urine or pale stools, belly pain or swelling, redness or drainage at the incision, or missed doses of your anti-rejection medicine.

Risks and Complications

A liver transplant is major surgery, and your team will talk through the risks as they apply to you. They include:

  • Rejection, when your immune system attacks the new liver. It is often treated successfully with changes to your medicines.
  • Infection, because anti-rejection medicines lower your body's defenses.
  • Bleeding and blood clots, including a clot in the artery or vein that serves the new liver.
  • Bile duct problems, such as a leak or a narrowing, which may need a procedure to fix.
  • Side effects of anti-rejection medicines, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney problems, thinning bones and a higher risk of some cancers, including skin cancer.
  • The original disease returning in the new liver, in some cases.
  • The new liver not working well, which is uncommon and may mean another transplant.

Results of a Liver Transplant

For most people, a transplant restores health and energy that liver failure had taken away. Most people live for many years afterward, working, traveling and spending time with family. Lifelong care keeps the new liver healthy: taking your medicines every day, having regular blood tests, protecting your skin from the sun, getting the vaccines your team recommends and avoiding alcohol.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long will I wait for a liver?

It varies widely, from days to more than a year, depending mostly on how sick your liver is, your blood type and your body size. Your transplant team will tell you what to expect for your situation.

Will I take medicines for the rest of my life?

Yes. Anti-rejection medicines are taken every day for life. The doses usually go down over time, and your team watches for side effects with regular blood tests.

Can a family member donate part of their liver to me?

Possibly. A living donor must be a healthy adult with a compatible blood type who goes through a full evaluation. Ask your transplant team whether living donation is an option for you.

Can I have a transplant if I have liver cancer?

Some people can, usually when the cancer is early, the tumors are few and small, and it has not spread outside the liver. Your team will look at your scans and liver function to decide.

Will I feel like myself again?

Many people say they feel better than they have in years once they recover. Fatigue and mood changes are common in the first months, and your team can help with both.

Who Provides It and Where

Liver transplants are performed at transplant centers by transplant surgeons and hepatologists. Doctors who treat liver disease and liver cancer evaluate people who may need a transplant, refer them for an evaluation, and often keep caring for them before and after the operation.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its liver cancer team of liver surgeons, gastroenterologists, radiologists, and medical and radiation oncologists considers a transplant for early liver cancer in a liver too damaged for other surgery, and treats the cancer while you wait.
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[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
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Related Service Lines
Cancer

Liver cancer teams decide when a transplant suits early liver cancer and treat the tumor while a patient waits.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Hepatologists care for cirrhosis and liver failure, refer for transplant evaluation and follow the new liver for life.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Radiologists image the liver for the evaluation and open narrowed bile ducts or vessels after a transplant.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Treatments
Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

Learn More About Hepatectomy
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation
Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor...

Learn More About Tumor Embolization
Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and...

Learn More About Radioembolization
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection

References

  1. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Liver Transplant.
    https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/liver-disease/liver-transplant
  2. MedlinePlus. Liver transplant.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003006.htm
  3. National Cancer Institute. Liver Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/adult-liver-treatment-pdq
  4. Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. How organ allocation works.
    https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep most of your breast. Most people go home the same day, and radiation therapy usually follows to treat any cancer cells left in the breast.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your surgeon has recommended a lumpectomy, you are likely still taking in a breast cancer diagnosis and a long list of choices. It may help to know that a lumpectomy is the most common surgery for early breast cancer, and that for many people it keeps the breast looking much as it did before. This page explains what the operation removes, who it suits, how to get ready and what recovery is like.

A lumpectomy is also called breast-conserving surgery or a partial mastectomy. The surgeon takes out the tumor with a margin of normal tissue so that no cancer is left at the edges. For most people with early breast cancer, a lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy controls the cancer as well as removing the whole breast.

The decision is personal and is made with your breast surgeon, who weighs the size and position of the tumor, the size of your breast and your own wishes. You can take time to ask questions, and a second opinion is always welcome.

What Is a Lumpectomy?

A lumpectomy is an operation that removes a cancer or an abnormal area from the breast together with a rim of healthy tissue, called the margin. The rest of the breast stays in place. A specialist called a pathologist examines the removed tissue under a microscope to check that the margins are clear of cancer.

Many breast cancers found on a mammogram cannot be felt, so the surgeon needs a guide to find the exact spot. One way is a thin wire placed through the skin on the morning of surgery. Another is a marker the size of a grain of rice, placed with imaging on an earlier day. During the operation the surgeon finds that marker with a handheld radar probe, and nothing shows outside the breast in the meantime. Orlando Health Cancer Institute uses this wire-free method.

The surgeon may also check the lymph nodes under your arm in the same operation. See lymph node removal.

Why a Lumpectomy Is Performed

A lumpectomy treats breast cancer while keeping the breast. It is used for:

  • Early-stage invasive breast cancer, often a single tumor that is small compared with the size of the breast. See breast cancer.
  • Ductal carcinoma in situ, sometimes called stage 0 breast cancer, where abnormal cells have not spread beyond the milk ducts.
  • Some larger tumors after treatment first shrinks them, when chemotherapy or hormone therapy is given before surgery.
  • Removing a lump that a breast biopsy could not fully explain, so the whole area can be studied.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a good candidate if the cancer is in one area of the breast and can be removed with clear margins while leaving a breast you are comfortable with. A lumpectomy may not be the best choice if cancer is found in several areas of the breast, if the tumor is large compared with the breast, if you have had radiation to that breast before, or if you are pregnant and radiation would need to start soon. Some people choose a mastectomy for personal reasons or because of an inherited risk, and your team will support either choice. Genetic counseling can help with that decision.

How to Prepare

  • A planning visit. Your surgeon reviews your imaging and biopsy results and may order an MRI or blood tests. Ask whether a plastic surgeon should join the plan to reshape the breast at the same operation.
  • The marker. If a wire-free marker is used, it is placed with imaging on a day before surgery. If a wire is used, it is placed on the morning of surgery.
  • Medicines. Give your team a list of everything you take, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • Food and drink. Your team will tell you when to stop eating and drinking before the operation.
  • Clothing and a ride home. Bring a soft, supportive bra and a shirt that buttons in front, and arrange for someone to drive you home.

Your surgical team will give you written instructions for your own operation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

Most lumpectomies are done under general anesthesia, so you sleep through it, and some are done with sedation and numbing medicine. The surgeon makes a cut over or near the tumor, often placed where the scar will be less visible, and removes the tumor with its margin. If lymph nodes are checked, a second small cut is made under the arm. The incisions are closed with stitches that usually dissolve. The operation often takes an hour or two.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area, and most people go home the same day. Expect soreness, some bruising and swelling, and a firm area where tissue was removed. Over-the-counter pain medicine is often enough. A drain is uncommon unless lymph nodes were removed.

Recovery

Many people return to light activity and desk work within a week, and heavier lifting waits a little longer, until your surgeon says it is safe. The pathology report usually comes back within about a week, and your surgeon goes over it with you. If radiation is part of your plan, it usually starts a few weeks after surgery, once the incision has healed. See radiation therapy.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing or bleeding that will not stop. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, warmth or drainage at an incision, swelling that keeps growing, or pain your medicine does not ease.

Risks and Complications

A lumpectomy is a common operation, and serious problems are uncommon. The risks include:

  • Pain, bruising and swelling, which usually ease over a few weeks.
  • Infection or bleeding at the incision.
  • A seroma, a pocket of fluid that sometimes needs to be drained with a needle.
  • A change in the shape or feel of the breast, such as a dent or a firm scar.
  • Numbness in part of the breast or under the arm.
  • A second operation if cancer cells are found at the edge of the removed tissue.
  • Arm swelling, called lymphedema, when lymph nodes are removed. See lymphedema therapy.
  • Lasting nerve pain in a small number of people. See post-mastectomy pain, which can follow a lumpectomy too.

Your surgeon will talk through the risks as they apply to you.

Results of a Lumpectomy

For early breast cancer, studies show that a lumpectomy followed by radiation leads to the same long-term survival as a mastectomy. Most people keep a breast close to its earlier size and shape. When the cancer is removed with clear margins, the next steps depend on the cancer itself, and your care team may recommend radiation, medicine or both to lower the chance of the cancer returning. Regular follow-up visits and mammograms continue after treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a lumpectomy as effective as a mastectomy?

For most early breast cancers, a lumpectomy with radiation and a mastectomy lead to the same long-term survival. The best choice depends on the tumor, your breast and what matters to you.

Will I need radiation after a lumpectomy?

Most people do, because radiation treats any cancer cells left in the breast. Your care team decides based on your age and the features of the cancer.

What happens if the margins are not clear?

Your surgeon may recommend a second, shorter operation to remove more tissue from that edge. Some people choose a mastectomy at that point.

Can my breast be reshaped at the same time?

Often, yes. A plastic surgeon can rearrange tissue during the lumpectomy, called oncoplastic surgery, so the breast keeps a natural shape. See breast reconstruction.

When can I go back to work?

Many people return to desk work within a week. Jobs with heavy lifting take longer, and your surgeon will tell you when it is safe.

Who Provides It and Where

A lumpectomy is performed by breast surgeons, also called surgical oncologists, often working with radiologists, pathologists and plastic surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. The Breast Care Center brings breast surgeons, breast imaging, reconstructive plastic surgeons and nurse navigators together, and its surgeons perform lumpectomy with wire-free localization.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health General Surgery. Breast surgeons at Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health offices in the Tampa Bay area, including Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills, perform lumpectomy and work with plastic surgeons when reconstruction is part of the plan.
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[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Breast surgeons remove the tumor and a rim of healthy tissue, and radiation often follows a lumpectomy.

Learn More About Cancer
Radiology

Radiologists mark the tumor before surgery so the surgeon can find a lump too small to feel.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow...

Learn More About Post-Mastectomy Pain
Treatments
Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes...

Learn More About Mammogram
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk...

Learn More About Mastectomy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Surgery Choices for Women with DCIS or Breast Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/surgery-choices
  2. American Cancer Society. Breast-conserving Surgery (Lumpectomy).
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/treatment/surgery-for-breast-cancer/breast-conserving-surgery-lumpectomy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Lumpectomy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007409.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Breast Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-treatment-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history. It takes a few minutes, needs no needles or dye, and can find lung cancer early, when it is most treatable.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you smoke now or smoked for many years, you may have been told you qualify for a lung cancer screening, or you may be wondering whether you should ask for one. It is a quick, painless scan, and it is an important health check for a current or former smoker.

Lung cancer often causes no symptoms until it has spread, which is why it causes more cancer deaths in the United States than any other cancer. Screening looks for it before symptoms start. In large studies, yearly low-dose CT screening of people at high risk lowered the chance of dying from lung cancer by about 20 percent compared with chest X-rays. Most scans are normal or find a small spot that turns out to be harmless, and when cancer is found this way it is far more often at an early stage, when surgery or focused radiation can often cure it.

This page explains who should be screened, what happens at the scan and what your results mean.

What Is a Lung Cancer Screening?

A lung cancer screening is a low-dose CT scan of the chest, also called an LDCT, done once a year. A CT scanner takes many X-ray pictures as you lie on a table, and a computer combines them into a detailed, three-dimensional view of your lungs. It can show spots, called lung nodules, as small as a grain of rice.

The low-dose scan uses much less radiation than a standard CT scan of the chest, and no dye or IV is needed. Large studies show that yearly screening with this scan lowers the chance of dying from lung cancer. A chest X-ray does not find lung cancer early enough to do this.

Screening is for people with no symptoms. If you have symptoms such as a cough that will not go away or coughing up blood, see your doctor, who may order a different test.

Why a Lung Cancer Screening Is Ordered

Screening finds lung cancer at an early stage, before it spreads. Early lung cancer can often be removed with surgery or treated with focused radiation, with a good chance of cure. Once lung cancer has spread, it is much harder to cure.

Who Needs One

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a yearly screening for adults who meet all three of these:

  • Age 50 to 80.
  • A smoking history of at least 20 pack-years. A pack-year is one pack a day for a year. One pack a day for 20 years, or two packs a day for 10 years, both equal 20 pack-years.
  • You smoke now, or quit within the past 15 years.

The American Cancer Society goes further and recommends yearly screening for people 50 to 80 with 20 pack-years no matter how long ago they quit. If you quit more than 15 years ago, ask your doctor which guideline fits you.

Screening usually stops when you have not smoked for 15 years under the Task Force guideline, or when another health problem would make treatment for lung cancer unsafe.

If you do not qualify but have a strong family history, worked with asbestos or radon, or never smoked and are worried, talk with your doctor about your own risk.

How to Prepare

Most people need no special preparation.

  • Start with a visit. Your doctor talks with you about your smoking history and the benefits and risks of screening, then orders the scan. Medicare asks for this conversation before the first screening.
  • Tell the scheduler about a recent chest infection. A cold, bronchitis or pneumonia in the past few weeks can leave spots on the scan, so the scan may be moved to a later date.
  • Tell them if you are pregnant or could be.
  • Wear clothes without metal, or be ready to change into a gown. Remove jewelry from your chest and neck.
  • Check your coverage. Most insurance plans and Medicare cover yearly screening for people who meet the guidelines.
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What Happens During the Test

You lie on your back on a narrow table with your arms above your head. The table slides slowly through a large, open ring. You hold your breath for a few seconds while the scanner takes the pictures.

There are no needles, no medicine and no sedation, and the scan does not hurt. The scan itself takes a few minutes, and the whole visit usually takes less than 30 minutes. You can drive yourself, eat normally and go back to your day right away.

A radiologist, a doctor trained to read scans, then reviews the images and sends a report to the doctor who ordered your screening.

Risks

False alarms. About 1 in 4 screening scans finds a spot. Most turn out to be harmless, but some lead to more scans, worry and sometimes a biopsy that shows no cancer.

Finding cancers that would not have caused harm. Some slow-growing cancers found by screening might never have caused problems, yet are treated.

Radiation. The dose is low, about the same as several months of natural background radiation. Over many years of screening, it adds a very small risk.

Other findings. The scan can show things outside the lungs, such as calcium in the heart arteries, that may need follow-up.

For people who meet the guidelines, the benefit of finding lung cancer early outweighs these risks.

Understanding Your Results

Results are usually reported with a score called Lung-RADS, from 1 to 4, that guides the next step:

  • Normal or a harmless finding. You come back for your next yearly scan.
  • A small spot that is probably harmless. You have a follow-up scan in about six months to make sure it does not change.
  • A spot that needs a closer look. You may have a scan in a few months, a PET-CT scan, or a biopsy, sometimes through navigational bronchoscopy.

A finding is not a diagnosis. A biopsy shows whether a spot is cancer, and most spots are not. Keep your yearly scans even when results are normal, since a new cancer can appear between scans.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the screening take?

The scan itself takes a few minutes. With check-in and changing, most visits take less than 30 minutes.

Does insurance pay for it?

Most plans cover yearly screening with no cost to you when you meet the guidelines. Medicare covers it for people 50 to 77 who meet its smoking criteria. Check your plan before you schedule.

I quit smoking years ago. Do I still need it?

Possibly. Risk stays higher than for someone who never smoked. If you have 20 pack-years and are 50 to 80, ask your doctor whether screening is right for you.

What if I still smoke?

You can and should be screened. Your care team can also help you quit, which lowers your risk from the day you stop.

What if my scan finds something?

Most findings are scars or other harmless spots. Your doctor will explain the result and the next step, which is often just another scan in a few months.

Who Provides It and Where

Lung cancer screening is ordered by your primary care doctor or a pulmonologist and read by radiologists, with thoracic specialists ready if a scan finds something.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Offers screening at its downtown Orlando clinic for people at high risk: a short questionnaire to check your risk, then a yearly CT scan, with its Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center to evaluate any nodule found. It also offers free classes to help you quit smoking.

Orlando Health Melbourne Hospital and Orlando Health Sebastian River Hospital also offer low-dose CT screening.

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Cancer

When a screening scan finds lung cancer, thoracic cancer specialists take up diagnosis and treatment early.

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Pulmonary / Critical Care

Lung specialists review smoking history to confirm who qualifies and follow up any nodule a screening finds.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Radiology

Radiologists perform the yearly low-dose CT scan and score each result to set the next step.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

Learn More About Lung Cancer
Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

Learn More About Lung Nodules
Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

Learn More About Thoracic Cancers
Treatments
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Navigational Bronchoscopy

Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built...

Learn More About Navigational Bronchoscopy
Mediastinal Surgery

Mediastinal surgery reaches the space in the middle of your chest, between the lungs, to take a tissue sample or remove a...

Learn More About Mediastinal Surgery

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Lung Cancer: Screening. 2021.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/lung-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. Lung Cancer Screening Guidelines. 2023.
    https://www.cancer.org/health-care-professionals/american-cancer-society-prevention-early-detection-guidelines/lung-cancer-screening-guidelines.html
  3. RadiologyInfo.org (American College of Radiology and Radiological Society of North America). Lung Cancer Screening.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/screening-lung
  4. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Screening for Lung Cancer with Low Dose Computed Tomography.
    https://www.cms.gov/medicare-coverage-database/view/ncacal-decision-memo.aspx?proposed=N&NCAId=304
  5. National Cancer Institute. Lung Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/lung/patient/lung-screening-pdq

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see whether cancer has spread to them. The result helps set the stage of the cancer and guides the rest of your treatment.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your surgeon has said they will remove some lymph nodes, you may be wondering what that means for your diagnosis. Lymph nodes are small, bean-shaped glands spread through the body, with clusters under the arms, in the neck, in the groin and in the chest and belly. Cancer cells that leave a tumor often reach the nearest nodes first, so checking them is one of the clearest ways to learn how far a cancer has gone.

Lymph node removal is a common part of cancer surgery. It is used for breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer and many other cancers, and it is often done in the same operation that removes the tumor. In many cases only one to a few nodes are needed.

This page explains the two main kinds of lymph node surgery, why each is done, how to get ready, what recovery is like and how to lower the chance of arm or leg swelling afterward.

What Is Lymph Node Removal?

Lymph node removal is surgery to take out lymph nodes so they can be studied under a microscope. Lymph nodes are part of the lymphatic system, a network of thin vessels that carries a clear fluid called lymph and helps the body fight infection. A pathologist examines each node removed and reports whether any cancer cells are found.

The result helps your care team stage the cancer, which means describing its size and how far it has spread. The stage guides decisions about further treatment, such as radiation therapy, chemotherapy or more surgery. When cancer is already known to be in the nodes, removing them is also part of treating it.

Kinds of Lymph Node Removal

  • Sentinel lymph node biopsy. The sentinel nodes are the first one to a few nodes that drain the area of the tumor. The surgeon finds them with a tracer and removes only those. If they are free of cancer, the other nodes are usually left in place. This approach is used most often for breast cancer and melanoma.
  • Lymph node dissection. The surgeon removes a larger group of nodes from one area, such as the armpit, called an axillary dissection, or the groin, neck or chest. It may be recommended when cancer is found in the nodes. In the chest, surgeons can remove the nodes around the lungs with robotic surgery through small incisions.

Lymph nodes are also removed as part of many larger cancer operations, such as surgery for colon, stomach, uterine or bladder cancer. A single enlarged node can sometimes be sampled with a needle instead of surgery. See biopsy.

Why Lymph Node Removal Is Performed

Lymph node removal is done to:

  • Find out whether a cancer has spread beyond where it started.
  • Remove cancer that is already in the nodes.
  • Guide the next treatment, since nodes with cancer can change the plan.

It is part of the care for many cancers, including breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, head and neck cancers and thyroid cancer.

Who Is a Candidate

Your surgeon recommends node surgery based on the type of cancer, its size, what imaging shows and what any earlier biopsy found. For many early breast cancers and melanomas, a sentinel node biopsy is enough. Some people who receive chemotherapy before surgery have a marker placed in a node that held cancer, so the surgeon can find and remove that same node later. The decision is made with you, and you are welcome to ask why each step is planned.

How to Prepare

  • The tracer. For a sentinel node biopsy, a small amount of a radioactive tracer, a blue dye or both is injected near the tumor, either the day before or the day of surgery. The tracer travels to the sentinel nodes so the surgeon can find them.
  • Medicines. Tell your team about everything you take, including blood thinners, and ask which to pause.
  • Food and drink. Follow your team's instructions about when to stop eating and drinking.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and, after a larger dissection, help for the first few days.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You are usually under general anesthesia. For a sentinel node biopsy, the surgeon uses a handheld probe to find the nodes holding the tracer, or looks for nodes stained blue, and removes them through a small cut. A dissection takes longer and removes the group of nodes in that area. The removed nodes go to the pathology lab.

After the Procedure

After a sentinel node biopsy, many people go home the same day. After a dissection, a thin drain may be left in place for a week or two to collect fluid, and your team will show you how to empty it. If blue dye was used, your urine may look blue or green for a day or two, and the skin near the injection may stay tinted for a while longer.

Recovery

Expect soreness and some numbness near the incision. After surgery under the arm, gentle arm and shoulder exercises help you regain movement, and your team or a therapist will show you which ones to do. Most people return to light activity within a few days after a sentinel node biopsy and within a few weeks after a dissection.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing or bleeding that will not stop. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, warmth or drainage at an incision, a drain that stops draining or leaks, or new swelling in the arm, hand or leg on the side of your surgery.

Risks and Complications

The risks are lower after a sentinel node biopsy than after a dissection, because fewer nodes are taken. They include:

  • Lymphedema, swelling of the arm, hand, leg or another area when lymph fluid cannot drain well. It can appear months or years later. Early care helps; see lymphedema therapy.
  • A seroma, a pocket of fluid under the incision.
  • Numbness, tingling or pain in the skin near the incision or along the arm.
  • Stiffness in the shoulder or arm.
  • Infection or bleeding.
  • An allergic reaction to the blue dye, which is rare.

Some surgeons can reconnect lymph vessels to small veins at the time of surgery, called lymphovenous bypass, to lower the chance of lymphedema. Ask your surgeon whether it fits your plan.

Results of Lymph Node Removal

The pathology report usually arrives within a week or so and says how many nodes were removed and whether any held cancer cells. Nodes without cancer are good news and often mean the cancer was found early. When nodes do hold cancer, that finding helps your team choose the treatment that fits, which may include radiation, medicine or more surgery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are healthy lymph nodes removed?

Cancer cells in a node are often too small to see on a scan. Studying the node under a microscope is the only way to know for sure.

How many lymph nodes will be removed?

A sentinel node biopsy usually removes one to a few. A dissection removes more, and the number depends on the area.

Can I live without the nodes that were removed?

Yes. You have hundreds of lymph nodes, and your body continues to fight infection without the ones that were taken.

How can I lower my chance of lymphedema?

Keep moving the arm or leg as your team advises, protect the skin from cuts and burns, and report new swelling early so treatment can start.

Will I need a drain?

Usually only after a dissection. Your team will show you how to care for it and will remove it once the fluid slows down.

Who Provides It and Where

Lymph node removal is performed by surgical oncologists, breast surgeons, thoracic surgeons and other cancer surgeons, depending on where the cancer started.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Breast surgeons at the Breast Care Center perform sentinel node biopsy and axillary dissection, and surgeons at the Rod Taylor Thoracic Care Center perform robotic lymph node dissection in the chest.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health General Surgery. Breast surgeons at Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health offices in the Tampa Bay area, including Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills, remove lymph nodes to check whether breast cancer has spread.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health dermatology and skin cancer surgeons perform lymph node dissection as part of melanoma surgery.
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[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Advanced Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation therapists help prevent and treat arm swelling after lymph nodes are removed.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Cancer

Removing lymph nodes shows whether cancer has spread, which guides the rest of your cancer treatment.

Learn More About Cancer
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Penile Cancer

Penile cancer is a rare cancer that most often starts in the skin of the penis, usually as a sore, a lump or a change in...

Learn More About Penile Cancer
Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow...

Learn More About Post-Mastectomy Pain
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Treatments
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

Learn More About Lymphedema Therapy
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after cancer surgery or radiation. A trained therapist uses gentle massage, wraps, compression garments, exercise and skin care, and teaches you to manage it at home.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your arm or leg has started to feel heavy or look swollen after cancer treatment, you may be worried that the cancer is back or that the swelling will never go away. Swelling like this is often lymphedema, a known effect of cancer treatment, and there is a lot that can be done for it.

Your lymph system is a network of thin vessels and small glands, called lymph nodes, that moves fluid out of your tissues and back into your blood. When surgery removes lymph nodes, or radiation scars them, the fluid can back up and collect, most often in an arm after breast cancer treatment or a leg after treatment in the pelvis.

Lymphedema therapy is a set of hands-on treatments and daily habits that move the fluid, shrink the swelling and keep it under control. It works best when it starts early. This page explains how it works, what is included, who it helps, how to get ready, what sessions are like, the risks and the questions people ask most.

What Is Lymphedema Therapy and How Does It Work?

Lymphedema therapy is treatment by a physical or occupational therapist with special training in lymphedema, often a certified lymphedema therapist. Its main form is called complete decongestive therapy.

Lymph fluid has no pump of its own. It moves when muscles squeeze, when you breathe deeply and when the skin is lightly stretched. Lymphedema therapy uses those same forces. Light, rhythmic massage guides fluid toward working lymph vessels. Wraps and garments press on the tissue so fluid cannot collect again. Exercise uses your muscles as a pump. Skin care protects against infection, which can make swelling worse.

Lymphedema can be lifelong, so the aim is control: reduce the swelling as much as possible, then keep it down with habits you learn to do yourself.

Kinds of Lymphedema Therapy

Complete decongestive therapy has two phases:

  • The reduction phase, with frequent sessions over a few weeks to bring the swelling down.
  • The maintenance phase, which you do at home to keep the swelling down.

Its parts are:

  • Manual lymphatic drainage, a light, skin-stretching massage that moves fluid toward healthy lymph nodes. It is lighter than a typical massage.
  • Compression bandaging, layers of short-stretch wraps worn most of the day and night during the reduction phase.
  • Compression garments, fitted sleeves, gloves or stockings worn every day once the swelling is down.
  • Exercise, simple movements that help the muscles push lymph along.
  • Skin and nail care to prevent cuts and infection.

Other treatments include a pneumatic compression pump, a sleeve that inflates in timed waves, for home use. For some people whose swelling does not respond, surgeons offer procedures such as lymph node transfer or lymph vessel bypass. See lymph node removal.

What Lymphedema Therapy Is Used For

By goal:

  • To reduce swelling and the feeling of heaviness or tightness.
  • To improve movement in the arm, shoulder, leg or neck.
  • To prevent lymphedema from getting worse and lower the risk of infection.
  • To find it early by measuring the limb before and after treatment.

By condition: lymphedema after lymph node removal or radiation therapy for breast cancer, melanoma, gynecologic cancers, prostate and other urologic cancers, head and neck cancers and sarcoma. Therapists also treat lymphatic cording, tight rope-like bands under the skin of the arm after breast surgery. Lymphedema can also run in families or follow injury or infection.

Before You Start

A referral. Your oncologist, surgeon or primary care doctor refers you to a lymphedema therapist. Ask about a baseline measurement before surgery, so early changes are easy to spot.

Ruling out other causes. New swelling is checked by your doctor first, since a blood clot, an infection or, rarely, a cancer that has returned can also cause it. You may have an ultrasound of the veins.

Measurements. The therapist measures both limbs with a tape measure or a scanner and checks your skin, movement and strength.

Your health history. Tell the therapist about heart failure, kidney disease, an active infection or a blood clot, which can change or delay treatment.

What to wear. Loose clothing.

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What to Expect

During the reduction phase, you may have sessions several days a week for two to six weeks, each about an hour. The therapist does manual lymphatic drainage, then wraps the limb in bandages you keep on until the next visit.

Learning to do it yourself is a large part of therapy. You learn self-massage, how to wrap or put on garments, exercises and skin care, and a caregiver can learn too.

In the maintenance phase, you are fitted for compression garments, wear them daily and keep up your home routine. Garments are usually replaced every few months as they stretch. Follow-up visits check your measurements.

When to get help. For chest pain or trouble breathing, call 911. Call your care team the same day for redness, warmth or pain in the swollen limb, which can be an infection called cellulitis, or for sudden swelling in one leg or arm.

Side Effects and Risks

Lymphedema therapy is safe for most people. Possible problems include:

  • Skin irritation under wraps or garments, which a better fit or liner can fix.
  • Discomfort or numbness if bandages are too tight. Remove them and call your therapist if fingers or toes turn pale, blue or cold.
  • Heat and itching in a Florida summer under wraps.
  • Not safe right now with an active infection, a new blood clot or uncontrolled heart failure, until those are treated.

Lymphedema that is not treated tends to worsen over time, and the skin can harden. Treating it early helps prevent that.

Benefits: What It Can Do

Lymphedema therapy can reduce swelling, make the limb lighter and easier to move, lower the risk of infection and help clothes and jewelry fit again. Most people learn to keep their lymphedema under control at home. Starting early, when swelling is mild, gives the best results.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will lymphedema go away?

Mild swelling soon after surgery can fade. Lasting lymphedema usually does not go away completely, but therapy can keep it small and manageable.

Is it safe to exercise?

Yes. Exercise, including weight training that starts light and builds slowly, is safe for most people and can help. Wear your compression garment if your therapist advises it.

Can I fly with lymphedema?

Yes. Ask your therapist whether to wear your garment during the flight, and move around when you can.

Should I avoid blood pressure checks or needles in that arm?

Many care teams suggest using the other arm when you can. Ask your team what they recommend for you.

Will insurance cover garments and therapy?

Therapy is often covered with a referral. Medicare now covers compression garments for lymphedema, and many plans do too. Check your plan before you start.

Who Provides It and Where

Lymphedema therapy is given by physical and occupational therapists with lymphedema training, working with your oncologist and surgeon.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Through the Orlando Health Rehabilitation Institute, its rehabilitation therapists offer lymphedema management and teaching, and exercise, rehabilitation and lymphedema therapy after breast cancer surgery, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida. For breast cancer, a physical therapist who is a certified lymphedema specialist can take baseline measurements and start prehab before treatment. See cancer rehabilitation.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Massage therapists trained in oncology massage and lymphatic drainage, a paid service, alongside your therapy.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Advanced Rehabilitation

Lymphedema therapists use drainage massage, wraps, garments and exercise to bring down swelling after cancer care.

Learn More About Advanced Rehabilitation
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons offer lymph node transfer and lymph vessel bypass when swelling does not respond to therapy alone.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Breast, gynecologic and melanoma teams measure limbs before surgery and refer patients early when swelling begins.

Learn More About Cancer
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow...

Learn More About Post-Mastectomy Pain
Uterine Cancer

Uterine cancer starts in the uterus, most often in its lining, the endometrium. Its most common first sign is bleeding that...

Learn More About Uterine Cancer
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

Learn More About Gynecologic Cancers
Treatments
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Lymphedema (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/side-effects/lymphedema/lymphedema-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Lymphedema.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/swelling/lymphedema.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Lymphedema.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lymphedema.html
  4. Lymphatic Education and Research Network. Lymphedema.
    https://lymphaticnetwork.org/living-with-lymphedema/

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Mammogram

A mammogram is a low-dose X-ray of the breast that can find cancer early, often before a lump can be felt. The exam takes about 20 minutes, and most results are normal. If you are asked to come back for more pictures, that is common.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you have a mammogram coming up, whether it is your first or your tenth, it is natural to feel a little nervous. Knowing what will happen helps. The exam is short, the pressure on the breast lasts only seconds at a time, and the technologist will guide you through each step.

A mammogram is the main test used to screen for breast cancer in people who have no symptoms, and it is also used to look more closely at a lump or other change. Finding breast cancer early gives you more treatment choices, and many of those choices are simpler.

This page explains the two kinds of mammograms, who needs one and when, how to prepare, what happens in the room and how to read your results. It also explains why a call back for more images is a normal part of screening and what usually comes next.

What Is a Mammogram?

A mammogram uses a small dose of X-rays to take pictures of the inside of the breast. Each breast is placed between two flat plates and pressed flat for a few seconds while the pictures are taken. A doctor who specializes in reading breast images, called a radiologist, looks for changes such as a mass, small calcium deposits called calcifications, or an area that looks different from before.

Most mammograms today are digital, and many are 3D. A 3D mammogram, also called digital breast tomosynthesis, takes a series of images from different angles so the radiologist can look through the breast layer by layer. This helps find small cancers, especially in dense breast tissue, and can mean fewer call backs. Orlando Health imaging centers use digital mammography with 3D imaging.

Kinds of Mammograms

  • Screening mammogram. For people with no breast symptoms. It usually takes two pictures of each breast, and the radiologist reads them after your visit. At Orlando Health imaging locations you do not need a prescription for a screening mammogram.
  • Diagnostic mammogram. For a lump, nipple discharge, pain in one spot or another change, or to take a closer look after a screening mammogram. It takes more pictures, and often a radiologist reviews them while you are there. A diagnostic mammogram needs an order from your doctor.

Why a Mammogram Is Ordered

A mammogram is ordered to:

  • Screen for breast cancer before symptoms appear, when it is often smaller and easier to treat.
  • Check a breast change, such as a new lump, skin dimpling, a nipple that turns inward or discharge.
  • Follow up an area seen on an earlier mammogram.
  • Watch the breasts after treatment for breast cancer.

Who Needs One

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends a screening mammogram every two years for women ages 40 to 74 at average risk. The American Cancer Society gives women the choice to start yearly screening at 40, recommends yearly mammograms from 45 to 54, and every one or two years from 55 for as long as a woman is in good health. If you have a strong family history, an inherited gene change such as BRCA1 or BRCA2, or radiation to the chest at a young age, you may need to start earlier and add a breast MRI. Anyone with a breast change, at any age and of any gender, should see a doctor. Your doctor can help you choose a schedule; see breast cancer screening.

How to Prepare

  • Skip deodorant, powder and lotion on your chest and underarms that day. Some contain metals that show up on the images.
  • Wear a two-piece outfit so you only need to undress from the waist up.
  • Pick a good time. If you have periods, the week after your period is when breasts are usually least tender.
  • Bring earlier mammograms done outside Orlando Health, or have them sent, so the radiologist can compare. Images from an Orlando Health location are gathered for you.
  • Tell the technologist about breast implants, past breast surgery, any breast changes, and any recent vaccine and which arm it was given in, since a vaccine can briefly enlarge lymph nodes under the arm.
  • Mention any chance of pregnancy before the exam.
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What Happens During the Test

You change into a gown or wrap. The technologist places one breast on the plate of the machine and lowers a clear plastic plate to press the breast flat. You hold still for a few seconds while the picture is taken, then the plates release. This is repeated from the side and then for the other breast. For a 3D mammogram, the machine moves in an arc over the breast.

The pressure can feel uncomfortable, and for some people it hurts briefly. Pressing the breast flat keeps the picture sharp and lowers the radiation dose. Tell the technologist if it hurts, since adjustments can often be made. If you have implants, the technologist takes extra pictures with the implant gently moved aside.

A screening visit takes about 20 minutes. A diagnostic visit can take longer if the radiologist asks for more pictures or a breast ultrasound.

Risks

  • Radiation. A mammogram uses a very low dose. The benefit of finding cancer early outweighs this small risk for people who are due for screening.
  • Discomfort from the pressure, which passes quickly.
  • A call back. Some screening mammograms need more images, and most of these turn out not to be cancer, but waiting can be stressful.
  • A missed cancer. No test finds every cancer, and dense breasts can hide some. Report any breast change, even after a normal mammogram.

Understanding Your Results

Your report will say whether the images are normal, need more pictures or show something that needs a closer look. It will also say whether your breasts are dense, which is common and means more of the breast is gland and fibrous tissue than fat. Dense tissue can make cancer harder to see, so your doctor may suggest an ultrasound or MRI.

If something needs a closer look, the next step is usually a diagnostic mammogram or ultrasound. If an area still looks unusual, a breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue to check it. Most biopsies after a mammogram find no cancer.

Results of a diagnostic mammogram are often given the same day. Screening results can take a few days, and you and your doctor will receive them.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a mammogram hurt?

Most people feel pressure, and some feel brief pain. Each squeeze lasts only a few seconds. Telling the technologist helps them adjust.

Do I need a referral?

Not for a screening mammogram at Orlando Health imaging locations. A diagnostic mammogram needs an order from your doctor.

I was called back. Does that mean I have cancer?

Usually not. A call back often means the radiologist wants a clearer view of an area or more images of dense tissue.

Can I have a mammogram with breast implants?

Yes. The technologist takes extra views with the implant moved back so the breast tissue can be seen clearly.

What is the difference between a 2D and a 3D mammogram?

A 2D mammogram takes flat pictures. A 3D mammogram adds images from several angles, which helps in dense breasts and can lower the chance of a call back.

Who Provides It and Where

Mammograms are performed by mammography technologists and read by radiologists who specialize in breast imaging.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. The Breast Care Center's breast imaging team provides screening and diagnostic mammograms, ultrasound, MRI and image-guided biopsy, and its doctors guide next steps when a mammogram finds something.
  • Orlando Health imaging locations offer mammograms in Central Florida, including the Women's Pavilion in Winter Park, the Medical Pavilions in Lake Mary and Spring Lake, and 3D mammography at St. Cloud Hospital.
  • Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital in St. Petersburg offers 3D screening and diagnostic mammograms, with a personal navigator for each patient through testing and follow-up.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Radiology offers digital mammograms in the Tampa Bay area, and The Gentle Mammogram, a comfort-focused screening experience, in Brandon, Zephyrhills and Wesley Chapel (Wiregrass).
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[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Radiology

Radiologists take and read mammograms, including 3D mammograms, at imaging centers across the region.

Learn More About Radiology
Women's

Women's care doctors order your yearly mammogram and go over the results with you.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

Learn More About Breast Cancer
Treatments
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

Learn More About MRI
Breast Cancer Screening

Breast cancer screening looks for cancer before you have any symptoms, most often with a mammogram. Most women at average...

Learn More About Breast Cancer Screening
Breast Biopsy

A breast biopsy takes a small sample of tissue from an area that looked unusual on a mammogram, ultrasound or MRI, or that...

Learn More About Breast Biopsy
Breast Reconstruction

Breast reconstruction is surgery that rebuilds the shape of a breast after a mastectomy or lumpectomy, using an implant,...

Learn More About Breast Reconstruction
Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep...

Learn More About Lumpectomy
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Breast Cancer: Screening (2024).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/breast-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. American Cancer Society Guidelines for the Early Detection of Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/screening/american-cancer-society-guidelines-for-the-early-detection-of-cancer.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Mammograms.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/mammograms-fact-sheet
  4. MedlinePlus. Mammography.
    https://medlineplus.gov/mammography.html
  5. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Mammography: What You Need to Know.
    https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/mammography-what-you-need-know

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Mastectomy

A mastectomy is surgery to remove all of the breast tissue from one or both breasts, most often to treat or lower the risk of breast cancer. Many people go home the same day or after one night, and you can choose reconstruction now, later or not at all.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended a mastectomy, you may be weighing it against a lumpectomy, wondering about reconstruction, or simply trying to picture the weeks ahead. Those are a lot of decisions to make at a hard time, and you do not have to make them alone or all at once. Your breast surgeon, your oncologist and a plastic surgeon can walk you through each one.

A mastectomy removes the breast tissue where the cancer started, and sometimes the skin, nipple or nearby lymph nodes as well. For many people it is one part of a larger plan that may also include medicine, radiation or both. Some people choose it to lower their chance of a new cancer because of an inherited risk.

This page explains the kinds of mastectomy, who it is for, how to get ready, what recovery looks like and the risks to talk over with your surgeon.

What Is a Mastectomy?

A mastectomy is an operation that removes the breast tissue. A breast surgeon performs it under general anesthesia, so you are asleep and feel nothing. Depending on the cancer and your wishes, the surgeon may keep the skin of the breast and sometimes the nipple, which helps if you plan reconstruction.

During the same operation, the surgeon often checks the lymph nodes under your arm, because they are the first place breast cancer cells tend to travel. Most often this is a sentinel lymph node biopsy, which removes only the first one to three nodes. Learn more about lymph node removal.

Kinds of Mastectomy

  • Total, or simple, mastectomy. Removes the breast tissue, nipple, areola and some skin. The chest is left flat with a scar across it.
  • Skin-sparing mastectomy. Removes the breast tissue, nipple and areola and keeps most of the skin, usually with reconstruction done in the same operation.
  • Nipple-sparing mastectomy. Keeps the skin, nipple and areola. It depends on the size of the breast and how close the tumor is to the nipple.
  • Modified radical mastectomy. Removes the breast along with the lymph nodes under the arm.
  • Double, or bilateral, mastectomy. Removes both breasts.
  • Preventive, or prophylactic, mastectomy. Removes healthy breast tissue in people with a high inherited risk of breast cancer.

Surgeons use the smallest incision the operation allows, and your surgeon will explain what is possible for your cancer and your reconstruction plan.

Why a Mastectomy Is Performed

A mastectomy is used to treat breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), and to lower the risk of breast cancer in people who have an inherited change such as BRCA1 or BRCA2. Your surgeon may recommend it when:

  • The tumor is large compared with the breast, or there is cancer in more than one area of the breast.
  • Radiation is not possible, for example after earlier radiation to the chest.
  • A lumpectomy did not remove the cancer with clear edges.
  • You have a gene change that raises your risk a great deal.

Who Is a Candidate

Many people with early breast cancer can choose between a mastectomy and a lumpectomy followed by radiation, and the two give the same chance of long-term survival. A mastectomy often means no radiation afterward, which matters to some people. Some choose to remove both breasts for peace of mind. For people without a high inherited risk, removing the healthy breast lowers the chance of a new cancer there and has not been shown to lengthen life, so it is worth talking through with your surgeon. Genetic counseling can help you understand your own risk before you decide.

How to Prepare

  • Meet the whole team. If you are considering reconstruction, your plastic surgeon can join your planning from the start.
  • Medicines. Bring a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • Food and drink. You will be told how long to go without eating or drinking before surgery.
  • Your recovery space. Set out button-front shirts, a soft front-closing bra or camisole, and pillows to rest against.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and someone to help for the first few days, since lifting is limited.
  • Bring someone along to appointments. People remember only part of what they hear at a visit, so a second listener helps.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

After you are asleep, the surgeon removes the breast tissue and any lymph nodes planned. If reconstruction is starting now, the plastic surgeon begins as soon as the mastectomy is done, often by placing a tissue expander. Small tubes called drains are placed to draw off fluid, and the incision is closed.

After the Procedure

Many people go home the same day or after one night in the hospital. A stay may be longer when reconstruction is done at the same time. Your team will show you how to empty the drains and record the fluid. They usually come out at a follow-up visit, often within about two weeks.

Recovery

Expect soreness, tightness and numbness across the chest and under the arm. Most people manage pain with medicine the team recommends. Lifting is limited for about a month, and simple arm exercises help you regain your range of motion. Many people return to usual activities in about four weeks, longer with reconstruction.

Call 911 for chest pain, sudden shortness of breath, or bleeding that soaks through your dressing. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, warmth or pus at the incision, a drain that stops working, or new swelling in your arm or hand.

Risks and Complications

A mastectomy is a common operation, and serious problems are uncommon. Risks include:

  • Bleeding and infection at the incision.
  • Seroma, a pocket of fluid under the skin, which can be drained in the office.
  • Numbness of the chest or upper arm, which may ease over time or may last.
  • Stiffness of the shoulder or arm.
  • Lymphedema, swelling of the arm, more likely when many lymph nodes are removed. See lymphedema therapy.
  • Long-lasting nerve pain in the chest, scar or arm. See post-mastectomy pain.
  • Problems with reconstruction, such as healing trouble at the skin edges.

Your surgeon will go over the risks as they apply to you.

Results of a Mastectomy

A mastectomy removes the breast tissue where the cancer was found. A specialist called a pathologist studies the tissue and the lymph nodes, and that report helps decide whether you need further treatment, such as chemotherapy, hormone therapy or radiation therapy. After treatment you will keep having checkups, and screening of any remaining breast continues.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to decide about reconstruction before surgery?

No. You can start reconstruction during the mastectomy, wait months or years, or choose not to have it. Learn more about breast reconstruction.

What does it mean to go flat?

Going flat, or flat closure, means the surgeon closes the chest smoothly with no added volume. Some people wear a breast form for certain clothes, and you can still choose reconstruction later.

Will I need radiation after a mastectomy?

Not always. It depends on the size of the tumor, the lymph nodes and other details your team reviews after surgery.

Will I have feeling in my chest?

Numbness is common, and some feeling may return over a few years. Tingling as nerves heal is common as well.

When can I drive and go back to work?

Many people drive once the drains are out and they can turn and react without pain. Return to work depends on your job and any reconstruction, often a few weeks.

Who Provides It and Where

Mastectomies are performed by breast surgeons and surgical oncologists, often planned with medical and radiation oncologists and plastic surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. The institute's Breast Care Center brings breast surgeons, oncologists, breast imaging, oncology nurse navigators and rehabilitation specialists together, and its surgeons work with plastic surgeons at the Orlando Health Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute. Its surgeons also offer lymphovenous bypass, a procedure to lower the chance of lymphedema after lymph nodes are removed.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health General Surgery. Breast surgeons in the Tampa Bay area, including Wesley Chapel, who perform total, modified radical, preventive and nipple-sparing mastectomies, with immediate or delayed reconstruction.
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Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons can start breast reconstruction during the same operation as a mastectomy.

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Cancer

Breast surgeons remove the breast to treat or lower the risk of breast cancer, with your cancer team.

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Conditions
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

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Post-Mastectomy Pain

Post-mastectomy pain is nerve pain in the chest wall, underarm or arm that lasts months after breast surgery. It can follow...

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Treatments
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

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Lumpectomy

A lumpectomy removes a breast cancer or a suspicious area along with a thin rim of healthy tissue around it, so you keep...

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

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Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

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Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

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Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Mediastinal Surgery

Mediastinal surgery reaches the space in the middle of your chest, between the lungs, to take a tissue sample or remove a growth such as a thymus tumor or a cyst. Many of these operations are done through small incisions, and recovery from a minimally invasive operation often takes three to four weeks.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has mentioned the mediastinum, it was probably because a scan showed something in the middle of your chest, often by chance while you were being checked for something else. A mass there can sound alarming. Many mediastinal growths are not cancer, and the ones that are can often be removed completely. Surgery is how your team gets a clear answer and, in many cases, how the growth is treated.

The mediastinum is the space between your lungs. It holds your heart, the large blood vessels, your windpipe, your esophagus, the thymus gland and many lymph nodes. Because so much passes through this small area, doctors usually recommend removing a growth there, even one that looks harmless, so it does not press on your heart, lungs or airway as it grows.

This page explains the kinds of mediastinal surgery, why surgeons recommend it, how to prepare, what recovery looks like and the risks to talk over with your surgeon.

What Is Mediastinal Surgery?

Mediastinal surgery is any operation in the mediastinum. It has two main purposes:

  • Diagnosis. Taking a tissue sample from a mass or from lymph nodes in the chest so a pathologist can say exactly what it is. This also helps stage lung cancer by showing whether it has reached the lymph nodes between the lungs.
  • Treatment. Removing a mass, a cyst or the thymus gland.

Doctors describe the mediastinum in three parts. The front part holds the thymus and is where thymomas and some lymphomas form. The middle part holds the heart, windpipe and many lymph nodes. The back part runs along the spine and is where nerve tumors usually form. Where a growth is found helps the team decide what it is likely to be and which approach will reach it best.

Mediastinal surgery is done by thoracic surgeons, who specialize in operations in the chest, under general anesthesia, so you are asleep.

Kinds of Mediastinal Surgery

  • Mediastinoscopy. The surgeon makes a small cut just above the breastbone and passes a thin, lighted scope into the chest to take samples from lymph nodes near the windpipe or from a growth. It is a diagnostic procedure and often takes about an hour to an hour and a half.
  • Robotic surgery. The surgeon works from a console, guiding small instruments on robotic arms through several small incisions on the side of the chest, with a magnified 3D view. It is used to remove thymus tumors, cysts and other growths. See robotic surgery.
  • Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). The surgeon uses a small camera and long instruments through a few small incisions between the ribs.
  • Open surgery. The surgeon reaches the mass through one larger incision, most often down the middle of the breastbone (a sternotomy) or between the ribs. It is used for very large tumors or ones that involve nearby blood vessels or organs.

Lymph nodes between the lungs can also be sampled without an incision, with a needle passed through a scope in the airway. Your team will choose the approach that fits your scans.

Why Mediastinal Surgery Is Performed

Surgery is recommended to diagnose or remove:

  • Thymomas and thymic carcinomas, tumors of the thymus gland. Surgery to remove the tumor is the most common treatment. Learn more about thoracic cancers.
  • Cysts, such as thymic, bronchogenic or pericardial cysts, which are usually not cancer but can grow and press on nearby organs.
  • Nerve tumors, usually in the back part of the mediastinum.
  • Germ cell tumors and other uncommon growths.
  • Enlarged lymph nodes, sampled to find out whether a lung cancer has spread, or to diagnose lymphoma, which is usually treated with medicine rather than surgery once the sample confirms it. See leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.

Some people with myasthenia gravis, a condition that causes muscle weakness, have the thymus removed as part of their care, whether or not a tumor is present.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if a CT scan, MRI or PET-CT scan shows a mass or enlarged lymph nodes in the middle of your chest, if the mass is causing symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath or chest discomfort, or if a sample is needed to plan cancer treatment. Your surgeon will review your scans, your breathing and your heart health before recommending an approach.

How to Prepare

  • Tests beforehand. You may have blood tests, breathing tests and scans so your team can plan the operation. If you have myasthenia gravis, your neurologist will help get your symptoms under control first.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Food and drink. You will be asked not to eat or drink for a set number of hours before surgery.
  • Smoking. Stopping smoking before surgery helps your lungs heal.
  • A ride and help at home. Arrange for someone to drive you home and stay with you the first few days.

Your surgical team will give you written instructions that fit your situation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You are asleep under general anesthesia with a breathing tube in place. The surgeon makes the incisions for the chosen approach, takes the sample or removes the mass, and checks for bleeding. After an operation inside the chest, a thin tube called a chest tube is often left in place for a short time to drain air and fluid.

After the Procedure

After a mediastinoscopy, the small cut above the breastbone is tender and your throat may be sore from the breathing tube. Many people go home the same day or the next morning. After the removal of a mass, you stay in the hospital until the chest tube is out and you are breathing and walking comfortably, usually a few days for a minimally invasive operation and longer after open surgery.

Recovery

Recovery from robotic chest or mediastinal surgery generally takes three to four weeks, compared with six to eight weeks after open surgery. Walking every day helps your lungs and lowers the chance of blood clots. Avoid heavy lifting until your surgeon clears you, and after a sternotomy follow the limits that let the breastbone heal.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing, coughing up blood, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, redness, swelling or drainage at an incision, a hoarse voice that is new, or pain that is getting worse.

Risks and Complications

Your surgeon will talk through the risks as they apply to you. They include:

  • Bleeding and infection.
  • Air leak or a collapsed lung, which may keep the chest tube in longer.
  • Injury to a nerve near the mass, which can cause a hoarse voice or weakness in the diaphragm, the muscle you breathe with.
  • Injury to the windpipe, esophagus or a blood vessel. These are uncommon, and some need repair during the same operation, which may mean opening the chest.
  • Fluid around the lungs and an irregular heartbeat for a short time after surgery.
  • Blood clots and reactions to anesthesia.
  • Switching to open surgery if the surgeon cannot finish safely through small incisions, so the operation can be completed with full access.

Results of Mediastinal Surgery

A pathologist examines the tissue, and results usually come back within about a week. Your surgeon will go over them with you. If the growth was not cancer and was fully removed, you often need no further treatment beyond a follow-up visit and possibly a scan. If it was cancer, the report tells your team the type and how far it reached, which guides whether you need radiation therapy, chemotherapy or regular scans. Some thymomas can return years later, so follow-up scans may continue for a long time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a mass in my chest mean I have cancer?

Not necessarily. Many mediastinal growths are cysts or other growths that are not cancer. A sample or the removed tissue gives the answer.

Why remove a growth that is not cancer?

Space in the middle of the chest is tight. Even a harmless growth can press on the heart, lungs, airway or blood vessels as it grows, and removing it also confirms what it is.

Will I have a large scar?

Most mediastinal operations today use small incisions. A larger incision is used for big tumors or ones close to major blood vessels.

How soon can I drive and go back to work?

Many people drive once they are off prescription pain medicine and can turn without pain. Return to work depends on your job and the approach, often a few weeks.

What if I have myasthenia gravis?

Your thoracic surgeon and neurologist plan the operation together, getting your symptoms well controlled beforehand and watching your breathing and strength closely afterward.

Who Provides It and Where

Mediastinal surgery is performed by thoracic surgeons, working with oncologists, radiation oncologists and pulmonologists when a growth is cancer.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its thoracic surgeons at the Rod Taylor Thoracic Center perform mediastinoscopy and robotic surgery to remove thymic tumors, thymomas, cysts and other growths in the mediastinum, and chest wall resection for tumors of the chest wall.
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Cancer

Thoracic surgeons and oncologists remove thymic tumors and sample chest lymph nodes to stage lung cancer.

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Neurologists prepare people with myasthenia gravis for removal of the thymus and watch their strength after.

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Pulmonary / Critical Care

Lung specialists check breathing before surgery and help manage recovery of the lungs afterward.

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Conditions
Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

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Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

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Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are the three main kinds of blood cancer. They start in the bone marrow or the immune system,...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history....

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Navigational Bronchoscopy

Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Thymoma and Thymic Carcinoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/thymoma/patient/thymoma-treatment-pdq
  2. MedlinePlus. Mediastinoscopy with biopsy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003864.htm
  3. American Cancer Society. Tests for Lung Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/lung-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/how-diagnosed.html

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For most melanomas found early, surgery is the main treatment and is often the only one needed. Most people go home the same day.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

A melanoma diagnosis can turn an ordinary week upside down. Often the spot has already been removed by a biopsy, and now your doctor is recommending more surgery, which raises a fair question: if the spot is gone, why go back? This page answers that, along with what the operation involves, how to get ready and what healing looks like.

The biopsy tells your team what the spot was and how deep it reached. Melanoma cells can extend a short way past what the eye can see, so the next step removes a wider border of skin around the biopsy site to take any remaining cells. For a thicker melanoma, your surgeon may also check the first lymph nodes the area drains to, because that is where melanoma most often travels first.

For most people with melanoma found early, surgery is the whole treatment. The thickness of the melanoma, measured in millimeters, guides how much skin is removed and whether lymph nodes are checked, and your surgeon will explain how those numbers apply to you.

What Is Melanoma Surgery?

Melanoma surgery is the operation that removes a melanoma, a skin cancer that starts in melanocytes, the cells that give skin its color. Its main part is a wide local excision: the surgeon removes the melanoma or the biopsy scar along with a set margin of healthy-looking skin and the fat beneath it, then closes the wound.

The margin grows with the melanoma's thickness. Melanoma in situ, which has not grown below the top layer of skin, usually needs a margin of about half a centimeter to one centimeter. Thicker melanomas need one to two centimeters. A pathologist examines the removed tissue to confirm the edges are clear.

Kinds of Melanoma Surgery

  • Wide local excision. Removal of the melanoma site with its margin. Most melanoma surgery is this alone. See excisional surgery.
  • Sentinel lymph node biopsy. The surgeon finds and removes the first one to three lymph nodes that drain the area, using a tracer injected near the melanoma, and the lab checks them for cancer.
  • Lymph node dissection. Removal of more lymph nodes in one area, used when melanoma has clearly spread to them. See lymph node removal.
  • Mohs surgery. For some early melanomas on the face, such as the nose or eyelids, layer-by-layer removal saves healthy skin. See Mohs surgery.
  • Surgery for spread. Sometimes a melanoma that has reached another part of the body is removed, along with other treatment.

Why Melanoma Surgery Is Performed

Surgery removes the melanoma and the cells that may lie just beyond it, which lowers the chance it returns in the same place. Checking the nearest lymph nodes shows whether melanoma has begun to spread, which sets the stage and guides whether you need treatment after surgery.

Who Is a Candidate

Almost everyone diagnosed with melanoma that has not spread widely has surgery. A sentinel lymph node biopsy is usually discussed when the melanoma is thicker than about 0.8 millimeters, has an open sore on its surface (ulceration), or has other features that raise the chance of spread. Your surgeon reviews your biopsy report and your health with you, and you decide together.

How to Prepare

  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners, aspirin and supplements, and ask which to pause. Do not stop a prescribed blood thinner unless the doctor who prescribed it says to.
  • Food and drink. For surgery under general anesthesia, you will be told when to stop eating and drinking.
  • Smoking. Stopping before surgery helps the wound heal.
  • A ride home. Arrange one if you will have anesthesia or sedation, and someone to stay with you the first night.
  • Tracer timing. If you are having a sentinel lymph node biopsy, the tracer injection may be scheduled earlier that day or the day before.

Your care team will give you written instructions for your surgery.

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[Resource Headline]

[Optional Sub-Heading]

[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

A wide local excision on its own is often done with numbing medicine in an office or outpatient center, and you stay awake. When a sentinel lymph node biopsy is added, you usually receive general anesthesia or sedation. The surgeon uses a handheld probe, and sometimes a blue dye, to find the sentinel nodes through a small separate incision. The main wound is closed with stitches, or with a flap or graft if a large area is removed.

After the Procedure

Most people go home the same day. Expect soreness, and some tightness where the skin was pulled together. If blue dye was used, your skin and urine may look blue or green for a day or two. Pathology results usually take about one to two weeks.

Recovery

Keep the wound clean and dry as instructed, and limit lifting and hard exercise for about two weeks, longer after a lymph node dissection. Stitches usually come out in one to two weeks. Your team calls with the pathology report and talks through next steps.

Call 911 for bleeding that will not stop after 20 minutes of firm pressure, chest pain or trouble breathing, or swelling of the face or throat. Call your care team the same day for spreading redness, warmth or pus at a wound, a fever over 100.4 degrees, a swelling that keeps growing under an incision, or new swelling in an arm or leg.

Risks and Complications

Melanoma surgery is generally safe. Possible problems include:

  • Bleeding and infection at the wound.
  • A scar, sometimes larger than people expect, because of the margin.
  • Seroma, a pocket of fluid under a lymph node incision, which may need to be drained.
  • Numbness around the wound.
  • Lymphedema, swelling in an arm or leg, more likely after a lymph node dissection than after a sentinel lymph node biopsy.
  • Reactions to anesthesia or the tracer, which are uncommon.

Your surgeon will go over the risks that apply to your melanoma's location.

Results of Melanoma Surgery

For melanoma found early, surgery cures most people. The pathology report sets the final stage. If the lymph nodes show melanoma, or the melanoma has a higher risk of returning, your team may recommend treatment after surgery, such as immunotherapy or targeted therapy. For advanced melanoma, options also include tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy. Follow-up visits and regular skin exams continue for years, because a new melanoma or other skin cancer can appear.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I need more surgery after my biopsy removed the spot?

The biopsy may leave melanoma cells just past the edge you could see. The wider excision removes them and lowers the chance the melanoma returns in that spot.

Will I need a skin graft?

Most wounds close with stitches. A flap or graft is used when a large area is removed or skin is tight, as on the lower leg, scalp or face. See skin cancer reconstruction.

What does a positive sentinel lymph node mean?

It means melanoma cells were found in the first lymph node. It helps set the stage, and your team will discuss treatment after surgery and closer follow-up.

How long until I get my results?

Pathology usually takes about one to two weeks. Your team will call or see you to explain the findings.

Will I need treatment after surgery?

Many people with early melanoma need only surgery and follow-up. Treatment after surgery is more likely when melanoma has reached the lymph nodes or has a higher risk of returning.

Who Provides It and Where

Melanoma surgery is performed by surgical oncologists, general surgeons, dermatologic and Mohs surgeons, and plastic surgeons, with medical oncologists joining when more treatment is needed.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team brings together surgical oncology, dermatology, plastic surgery, radiation oncology and medical oncology, with a tumor board for complex cases, in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Offers simple and wide excisions, lymph node surgery and Mohs surgery for some small, early melanomas, with plastic surgeons to repair larger wounds, at offices in Carrollwood, Land O' Lakes, North Tampa, St. Petersburg, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Surgical oncologists remove melanoma with a wider margin and check nearby lymph nodes when needed.

Learn More About Cancer
Dermatology

Dermatologists often find the melanoma and refer you for wider surgery after the first biopsy.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Treatments
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

Learn More About Lymph Node Removal
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

Learn More About Targeted Therapy
Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your...

Learn More About Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Melanoma Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/melanoma-treatment-pdq
  2. National Cancer Institute. Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/diagnosis-staging/staging/sentinel-node-biopsy-fact-sheet
  3. American Academy of Dermatology. Melanoma: Diagnosis and treatment.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/melanoma/treatment
  4. MedlinePlus. Melanoma.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000850.htm
  5. Skin Cancer Foundation. Melanoma.
    https://www.skincancer.org/skin-cancer-information/melanoma/

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no cancer remains. It saves as much healthy skin as possible, which matters most on the face, and it takes place in the office with numbing medicine.

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This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your dermatologist has referred you for Mohs surgery, you probably have a basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer on a spot you care about, such as your nose, eyelid, lip or ear. It is natural to worry about the scar and about how long the day will be. Mohs is built for exactly these places: it removes only the skin that holds cancer and leaves the rest.

During Mohs surgery, the surgeon removes the visible cancer and a very thin layer around it, then examines every edge of that layer under a microscope in a lab on site. If cancer shows up anywhere, the map tells the surgeon exactly where to take the next small layer, and nowhere else. The process repeats until the edges are clear, usually all in one visit.

Because the edges are checked during the procedure, you leave knowing the cancer is out, and the wound is usually repaired the same day. This page explains how Mohs works, who it is for, how to plan for the day and what healing looks like.

What Is Mohs Surgery?

Mohs surgery, also called Mohs micrographic surgery, is a precise way to remove skin cancer. It is named for Dr. Frederic Mohs, who developed it. A Mohs surgeon is a dermatologist with extra training who both removes the tissue and reads it under the microscope, so one doctor follows your cancer from start to finish.

With a standard excisional surgery, the surgeon removes a set margin of healthy skin and a lab checks a sample of the edges afterward. With Mohs, the surgeon examines the entire edge of each layer before deciding whether to remove more. That makes it possible to remove less healthy skin while still clearing the cancer.

Why Mohs Surgery Is Performed

Mohs is used mainly for basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, the two most common skin cancers. It is chosen when saving healthy skin matters or when the cancer is more likely to return after other treatment. Some early melanomas on the face, and some rarer skin cancers, are also treated with Mohs. See melanoma surgery.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if your skin cancer is:

  • On the face, ears, lips, eyelids, nose, scalp, neck, hands, feet or genitals.
  • Large, growing quickly or with borders that are hard to see.
  • A type that tends to grow in roots or along nerves.
  • Back after earlier treatment.

People with a weakened immune system, such as after an organ transplant, are often treated with Mohs too. A small, low-risk cancer on the back or leg is often treated just as well with a simpler procedure. Your dermatologist and Mohs surgeon decide with you.

How to Prepare

  • Plan for most of the day. Each layer takes time to process, and you cannot predict how many layers you will need.
  • Eat a normal breakfast unless told otherwise, and bring a snack, water, something to read and a sweater.
  • Medicines. Take your usual medicines unless your team tells you otherwise. Do not stop a prescribed blood thinner unless the doctor who prescribed it says to.
  • Skin. Skip makeup, lotion and jewelry near the area.
  • A ride. Arrange one if the cancer is near your eye or on your hand, since a bandage may make driving unsafe.

Your Mohs team will send instructions before the day.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You stay awake. The surgeon numbs the area and removes the visible cancer with a thin layer of tissue, which takes a few minutes. A bandage goes on and you wait, often in a waiting room, while the layer is frozen, sliced, stained and examined, which commonly takes an hour or more. If cancer remains, the surgeon numbs the area again and removes another layer only where it was found. Most cancers clear in one to three layers.

After the Procedure

Once the edges are clear, the surgeon talks with you about the repair. A small wound may be closed with stitches. A larger one may be closed with a flap, which moves nearby skin over the wound, or a graft, which uses skin from another place. Some wounds heal best on their own. Occasionally a plastic surgeon does the repair on another day. See skin cancer reconstruction.

Recovery

Expect mild pain, swelling and bruising for a few days. Bruising around the eyes is common after surgery on the forehead or nose. Keep the bandage dry for the first day or two, then clean the wound daily and keep it covered with petroleum jelly. Avoid bending, heavy lifting and hard exercise for about one to two weeks. Stitches usually come out in one to two weeks.

Call 911 for bleeding that will not stop after 20 minutes of firm pressure, chest pain or trouble breathing, or swelling of the face or throat. Call your care team the same day for spreading redness, warmth, pus, a fever over 100.4 degrees, or pain that keeps getting worse after the first few days.

Risks and Complications

Mohs is done with local numbing and has a low rate of problems. Possible risks include:

  • Bleeding and bruising, more likely with blood thinners.
  • Infection.
  • A scar, which is often smaller than with other surgery and fades over months.
  • Numbness or tingling near the scar, which usually improves over months.
  • Weakness of a facial muscle, rare, when a nerve close to the cancer is affected.
  • A wound larger than expected, when cancer reached farther under the skin than it showed on the surface.

Your surgeon will talk through the risks for your location.

Results of Mohs Surgery

Mohs has very high cure rates for basal cell and squamous cell skin cancers, up to 99 percent for a cancer treated for the first time and somewhat lower for a cancer that has come back. Because healthy tissue is spared, the scar is usually as small as it can be. After you heal, keep up regular skin exams and daily sun protection, because having one skin cancer raises the chance of another.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does Mohs surgery take?

Plan for several hours. Removing each layer takes minutes, but checking it in the lab can take an hour or more, and some cancers need more than one layer.

Does Mohs surgery hurt?

The numbing shots sting briefly. After that, most people feel pressure. Soreness afterward is usually mild and eased with acetaminophen.

Will I need a referral?

Often, yes. Many people are referred by their dermatologist after a biopsy confirms the cancer. Ask your insurer and the Mohs office before you schedule.

How big will the scar be?

That depends on how far the cancer spread under the skin, which is not always visible beforehand. Mohs keeps the wound as small as the cancer allows, and most scars fade over a year.

Can Mohs surgery treat melanoma?

Some early melanomas, especially on the face, are treated with Mohs. Most melanomas are removed with a wide local excision.

Who Provides It and Where

Mohs surgery is performed by Mohs surgeons, dermatologists with added training in the procedure, sometimes with a plastic surgeon for the repair.

  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Offers Mohs surgery as an outpatient procedure, with a Mohs surgeon seeing patients by physician referral in Land O' Lakes and Zephyrhills.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team, with dermatology, surgical oncology and plastic surgery, treats skin cancers that need more extensive surgery or further treatment, in downtown Orlando, Lake Mary and Ocoee.
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons sometimes close a larger Mohs wound on the face to help it heal well.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Dermatology

Mohs surgeons remove skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer before taking more.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Treatments
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery
Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as...

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Skin Cancer Screening

A skin cancer screening is a head-to-toe look at your skin for spots that could be cancer. It takes a few minutes, needs no...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Screening

References

  1. MedlinePlus. Mohs micrographic surgery.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007634.htm
  2. Skin Cancer Foundation. Mohs Surgery.
    https://www.skincancer.org/treatment-resources/mohs-surgery/
  3. American Academy of Dermatology. Basal cell carcinoma: Diagnosis and treatment.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/bcc/treatment
  4. American Academy of Dermatology. Squamous cell carcinoma: Diagnosis and treatment.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/types/common/scc/treatment
  5. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/skin-treatment-pdq

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which treatments are most likely to work for you, such as a targeted medicine or immunotherapy, and which ones you may be able to skip, such as chemotherapy.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Two people with the same kind of cancer can have tumors that behave very differently. Much of that difference comes from changes in the cancer cells' genes. Molecular profiling looks for those changes, so your care team can match your treatment to your cancer as well as to where it started.

You may hear it called biomarker testing, tumor genomic testing, next-generation sequencing or precision medicine. For you, the test usually means no new procedure. In most cases the lab uses tissue already taken during your biopsy or surgery, and sometimes a blood sample.

This test looks at your tumor. It is different from genetic testing for cancer risk you may have inherited from your family, although the results sometimes point toward that kind of test as well.

This page explains the kinds of molecular profiling, why it is ordered, how to prepare, what happens to your sample, and what your results can and cannot tell you.

What Is a Molecular Profiling Test?

Cancer starts when changes in a cell's genes cause it to grow out of control. These changes are sometimes called mutations or alterations. Some of them drive the cancer's growth, and some of them are the target of a specific medicine.

Molecular profiling is a lab test that reads the genes, and sometimes the proteins, in a sample of your cancer. It looks for markers, called biomarkers, that tell your care team more about how the cancer behaves. Some tests look at a single marker. Others look at hundreds of genes at once.

The results are part of the information your care team uses to plan your treatment, along with the type and stage of your cancer, your overall health and your own wishes.

Kinds of Molecular Profiling

  • Tumor DNA testing. A tissue sample is tested for changes in many genes at once, often with next-generation sequencing. It can find changes such as EGFR and ALK in lung cancer, BRAF in melanoma, or KRAS in colon and pancreatic cancer.
  • Blood-based testing (liquid biopsy). Small pieces of tumor DNA that circulate in the blood are tested. It can be used when a tissue sample is too small or hard to get.
  • Gene expression testing. Measures how active a group of genes is, to estimate the chance that a cancer will come back. In early-stage breast cancer, a test such as Oncotype DX helps decide whether chemotherapy would add benefit.
  • Protein testing. Stains on the tissue show proteins such as hormone receptors and HER2 in breast cancer, or PD-L1, which helps predict whether immunotherapy may work.

Why a Molecular Profiling Test Is Ordered

Doctors order molecular profiling to:

  • Find a targeted medicine. If the cancer has a change that a targeted therapy acts on, that medicine may work better and cause fewer side effects than other options.
  • See whether immunotherapy may help. Some markers, such as PD-L1 or a high number of gene changes, suggest that immunotherapy is more likely to work.
  • Decide whether chemotherapy is needed. For some early cancers, a low-risk result means chemotherapy would add little, and you may be able to avoid it.
  • Learn more about how the cancer may behave, which helps your care team plan follow-up.
  • Choose a next step when a cancer has grown or come back after treatment, since the cancer's genes can change over time.

Who Needs One

Molecular profiling is now part of standard care for many cancers, including lung, breast, colon and rectal, pancreatic, melanoma, ovarian and prostate cancers, and some blood cancers. It is most often ordered when a cancer has spread or come back, and for some early cancers to guide treatment after surgery. Whether it will help you depends on your type and stage of cancer, so ask your oncologist whether it fits your situation.

How to Prepare

There is usually little you need to do. Follow the instructions you are given.

  • Ask what sample will be used. Most often it is tissue from a biopsy or surgery you have already had. Sometimes the sample is too small, and you may need a new biopsy or a blood draw.
  • Ask about cost and coverage. Many insurance plans cover biomarker testing for cancer, and coverage differs by plan and by test. Your care team or the testing lab can help you check.
  • Ask how long results will take, and how you will hear about them, so the wait is easier to plan around.
  • Tell your care team about your family history of cancer. It helps them read your results and decide whether you might also benefit from genetic counseling.
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What Happens During the Test

For you, the test is often invisible. Your care team sends the sample to a specialized lab.

If tissue you already gave is used, nothing more happens to you. The pathologist chooses the part of the sample with the most cancer cells and sends it to the lab.

If a blood sample is needed, it is drawn from a vein in your arm, like any blood test, in a few minutes.

If a new biopsy is needed, your care team explains that procedure separately.

In the lab, DNA and sometimes RNA are taken from the cancer cells and read by machines that compare them with known changes. A team of specialists then writes a report on the changes found and what they may mean for treatment.

Results often take one to three weeks. Your oncologist goes over the report with you and explains what it means for your plan.

Risks

Molecular profiling itself has little physical risk, since it usually uses tissue you have already given.

  • A blood draw can cause brief pain or a small bruise.
  • A new biopsy, if needed, has its own small risks, such as bleeding, infection and pain. If you have a new biopsy, call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, or redness, swelling or drainage at the site.
  • Waiting for results can be hard. Ask your care team whether you can start some treatment while you wait.
  • Learning about inherited risk. Sometimes a tumor test finds a gene change you may have been born with. That can matter for your family, and a genetic counselor can help you decide on a follow-up test and what to share.

Understanding Your Results

Your report lists the changes the lab found and whether any of them match a treatment. Your oncologist will explain what it means for you.

  • A change with a matching treatment. A targeted therapy or immunotherapy may be part of your plan.
  • No change with a matching treatment. This is common, and it does not mean there are no good options. Standard treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy still work well for many cancers.
  • A risk score. Gene expression tests give a score that estimates the chance of the cancer coming back and whether chemotherapy is likely to help.
  • A change of uncertain meaning. Some changes are not yet understood. They are usually not used to make treatment choices.
  • A possible inherited change. Your care team may suggest genetic counseling and a blood or saliva test to confirm it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is molecular profiling the same as genetic testing?

Not exactly. Molecular profiling tests your tumor's genes, which changed during your life. Genetic testing for inherited risk tests the genes you were born with, usually from blood or saliva. The two can be linked, and your care team will tell you if you need both.

Will I need another biopsy?

Usually not. The lab can most often use tissue from a biopsy or surgery you already had. If there is not enough tissue, a blood test or a new biopsy may be needed.

Why did my doctor not order molecular profiling?

For some cancers and stages, the results would not change your treatment, so the test is not needed. If you are wondering whether it could help you, it is a good question to ask your oncologist.

Can the results mean I skip chemotherapy?

For some people, yes. In some early-stage breast cancers, a low score on a gene expression test shows that chemotherapy would add little benefit, so it can be safely left out of the plan.

Will the test need to be repeated?

Sometimes. Cancer cells can change over time, especially after treatment. If your cancer grows or comes back, your oncologist may order a new test, often from a blood sample.

Who Provides It and Where

Your oncologist orders molecular profiling, a pathologist prepares the sample, and a specialized lab runs the test. Your oncologist then explains the results and what they mean for your treatment.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Uses tumor genetic testing to personalize treatment, including gene expression testing in breast cancer, sequencing to look for changes such as BRAF in melanoma, and molecular profiling to plan treatment for pancreatic cancer. Its genetic counselors help people who may have an inherited gene change.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists with a focus on precision medicine, matching treatment to the makeup of each tumor.
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Cancer

Oncologists use tumor gene results to choose targeted medicines or immunotherapy, or to leave out chemotherapy.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists choose the part of the biopsy richest in cancer cells and send it for gene and protein testing.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

Learn More About Brain Tumors
Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

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Treatments
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Biomarker Testing for Cancer Treatment.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/biomarker-testing-cancer-treatment
  2. American Cancer Society. Biomarker Tests and Cancer Treatment.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/biomarker-tests.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Biomarker Testing for Cancer Treatment.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/biomarker-testing-cancer-treatment
  4. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients.
    https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources/guidelines-for-patients
  5. National Cancer Institute. Genetic Testing for Inherited Cancer Susceptibility Syndromes.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetics/genetic-testing-fact-sheet

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It helps find a growth, shows its size and where it is, and checks how treatment is working. You lie still in a scanner for 30 to 60 minutes.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

An MRI is a common test in cancer care and for many other conditions, from a knee injury to a headache. If your doctor ordered one, it does not by itself mean they think you have cancer. It means they want a clearer look at soft tissue than an X-ray can give.

MRI stands for magnetic resonance imaging. The scanner makes pictures with a magnetic field and radio waves, so you are not exposed to radiation. It shows soft tissues such as the brain, spinal cord, breast, liver, prostate and muscles in fine detail.

For many people the hardest parts are the noise and lying still in a narrow space. Knowing what to expect, and telling the team if you feel closed in, makes the scan much easier.

This page explains the kinds of MRI, why one is ordered, how to get ready, what happens during the scan, the risks, and how you hear about your results.

What Is an MRI?

An MRI scanner is a large tube with a strong magnet inside it. When you lie in the scanner, the magnet and pulses of radio waves cause tiny signals to come from the water in your tissues. A computer turns those signals into detailed pictures, in thin slices that can be viewed from any angle.

Different tissues give off different signals, which is why MRI is so good at showing the difference between healthy tissue and a growth. It can show a tumor's size, where it is, and whether it has grown into nearby blood vessels, nerves or the bowel wall.

Many MRI scans use a contrast agent called gadolinium, given through a vein. Contrast makes some tissues, including many tumors and areas of inflammation, show up more brightly.

Kinds of MRI

  • Brain and spine MRI. The main test for finding and following tumors of the brain and spinal cord, and for planning surgery or radiation.
  • Breast MRI. Used with mammograms and ultrasound for some people at high risk of breast cancer, and to see the extent of a cancer that has been found.
  • Prostate MRI. Shows areas of the prostate that look suspicious, so a biopsy can be aimed at them.
  • Pelvic and rectal MRI. Shows how deep a rectal cancer has grown and helps plan treatment. It is also used for cancers of the uterus and cervix.
  • Abdominal MRI. Looks at the liver, pancreas, kidneys and bile ducts.
  • MRI-guided procedures. MRI can guide a biopsy needle, or guide treatment such as laser therapy for some brain tumors or radiation that adjusts as a tumor moves.

Why an MRI Is Ordered

Doctors order an MRI to:

  • Look into a symptom, such as lasting headaches, a lump or unexplained pain
  • Find out whether a growth is likely to be cancer, and decide whether it needs a biopsy
  • See how far a cancer has spread in the area where it started, which is part of staging
  • Plan surgery or radiation, by mapping a tumor and the structures around it
  • Check how treatment is working, by comparing new pictures with earlier ones
  • Watch for cancer coming back after treatment, or for changes in a spot that is being followed over time

An MRI cannot say for certain what a growth is. When a scan shows something that may be cancer, a sample of tissue is usually the next step.

Who Needs One

People with symptoms or findings that need a closer look, and people treated or followed for many cancers, including brain, spine, breast, prostate, rectal, liver and pancreatic cancers. Some people at high risk of breast cancer, such as those with a BRCA gene change, have a breast MRI every year along with a mammogram. Your doctor will explain why MRI is the right test for your question, or whether a CT scan or PET-CT scan would answer it better.

How to Prepare

The strong magnet is always on, so safety checks matter more than for most tests. Follow the instructions you are given, which may differ from these general steps.

  • Tell your care team about any metal or device in your body, such as a pacemaker or defibrillator, a medicine pump, a cochlear implant, aneurysm clips, a nerve stimulator, shrapnel, or metal pieces from work. Many devices are safe in MRI, and some need special steps.
  • Tell them about kidney problems, since contrast may not be right for you, and about any earlier reaction to contrast.
  • Tell them if you are or might be pregnant, or if you are breastfeeding.
  • Tell them if small spaces make you anxious. You may be able to take a medicine to help you relax. If so, bring someone to drive you home.
  • Ask about eating and drinking. Most scans need no special diet. Some scans of the abdomen ask you not to eat for a few hours.
  • On the day, leave jewelry, watches and hairpins at home. Medicine patches may need to come off. You will change into a gown.
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What Happens During the Test

A technologist goes over your safety questions and helps you onto a padded table. If you need contrast, a small IV line is placed in your arm or hand.

A frame called a coil may be placed over the area being scanned. For a breast MRI you lie on your stomach. The table then slides into the scanner.

The scanner makes banging, tapping and buzzing sounds while it takes pictures. You will have earplugs or headphones. You need to stay very still, and you may be asked to hold your breath for short periods. You can talk with the technologist through a speaker, and you hold a call button the whole time.

If you have contrast, it is given partway through the scan. You may feel a cool feeling in your arm.

Most scans take 30 to 60 minutes. Some take longer. Afterward you can usually go back to your normal day. If you took a medicine to relax, someone needs to drive you home.

Risks

MRI is a very safe test, and it uses no radiation.

  • The magnet. Metal objects and some devices can move, heat up or stop working in the scanner. This is why the safety questions are so careful.
  • Contrast. A mild reaction, such as nausea, a headache or itching, can happen. A serious allergic reaction is rare. In people with severe kidney disease, gadolinium can rarely cause a condition that thickens the skin and organs, so kidney function is checked first when needed. Small amounts of gadolinium can stay in the body. No harm from this has been found, and your doctor weighs it in deciding whether you need contrast.

Call your care team the same day for pain, redness or swelling where the IV was placed, or an itchy rash after contrast. Call 911 if you have trouble breathing or swelling of your face or throat.

Understanding Your Results

A radiologist reads your scan and sends a report to the doctor who ordered it, often within a few days. That doctor will go over the results with you.

  • No concerning findings. Nothing that looks like a growth or a change from earlier scans.
  • A finding that needs a closer look. Many spots seen on MRI are not cancer. Your doctor may suggest another test, a biopsy, or a repeat scan to see whether it changes.
  • A cancer that has already been found. The report may describe its size, where it is, and whether it has grown into nearby tissue, which helps your team stage it and plan treatment.
  • During or after treatment. The report compares the pictures with earlier scans, to show whether a tumor has shrunk, stayed the same or grown.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is an MRI safe if I have a pacemaker or another implant?

Often, yes. Many newer devices are labeled safe for MRI under set conditions, and the team may adjust the device around the scan. Tell your care team about every implant when the scan is booked.

Does an MRI hurt?

No. The scan itself is painless. The IV for contrast may sting briefly, and lying still for a long time can be uncomfortable, so ask for a pillow or blanket.

What if I feel claustrophobic?

Tell your care team before your scan. Options include a medicine to help you relax, a scanner with a wider opening, music, and having someone you trust in the room.

How is an MRI different from a CT scan?

A CT scan uses X-rays and is fast, often a few minutes. An MRI uses a magnet and radio waves, takes longer, and shows soft tissues such as the brain, spinal cord, liver and prostate in more detail. Your doctor chooses the test that best answers the question.

Can I eat and take my medicines before an MRI?

For most scans, yes. Some scans of the abdomen ask you not to eat for a few hours beforehand. Keep taking your usual medicines unless your care team tells you otherwise.

Who Provides It and Where

MRI scans are done by radiologists and MRI technologists in hospital and outpatient imaging departments. The doctor who orders yours is often a cancer specialist, a neurosurgeon, a surgeon or your primary care doctor. Find a location near you below.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its breast imaging team uses MRI with mammograms and ultrasound to find and diagnose breast cancer, and its brain and spine tumor specialists use MRI to find a tumor and plan treatment.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Plans care together when imaging shows a cancer of the colon, rectum, liver, pancreas or stomach.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Comprehensive Care

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Cancer

Cancer specialists order MRI to stage a tumor, plan surgery or radiation, and see how well treatment is working.

Learn More About Cancer
Neuroscience

Neurosurgeons and neurologists use brain and spine MRI to find tumors and map them before surgery.

Learn More About Neuroscience
Radiology

Radiologists and MRI technologists perform the scan and read the pictures for the doctor who ordered it.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

Learn More About Adrenal Cancer
Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

Learn More About Anal Cancer
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

Learn More About Appendiceal Cancers
Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

Learn More About Bladder Cancer
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

Learn More About CT Scan
Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

Learn More About Bone Scan
Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
MUGA Scan

A MUGA scan measures how well your heart pumps blood. A small amount of tracer is added to your blood, and a camera takes...

Learn More About MUGA Scan

References

  1. RadiologyInfo.org (American College of Radiology and Radiological Society of North America). Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Body.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/bodymr
  2. MedlinePlus. MRI.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003335.htm
  3. National Cancer Institute. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
    https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/mri
  4. American Cancer Society. MRI for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/tests/imaging-tests/mri-for-cancer.html
  5. American Cancer Society. Breast MRI.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer/screening-tests-and-early-detection/breast-mri-scans.html
  6. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents.
    https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-drug-safety-communication-fda-warns-gadolinium-based-contrast-agents-gbcas-are-retained-body

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

MUGA Scan

A MUGA scan measures how well your heart pumps blood. A small amount of tracer is added to your blood, and a camera takes pictures of your heart as it beats. It is often done before and during cancer treatments that can affect the heart, to keep your heart safe.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you are about to start chemotherapy or another cancer treatment, your care team may order a MUGA scan before your first dose. It does not mean something is wrong with your heart. Some cancer medicines can weaken the heart muscle over time, and this scan gives your team a starting measurement to compare against as treatment goes on.

MUGA stands for multigated acquisition. It is a nuclear medicine test, which means it uses a very small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera. The main number it gives is your ejection fraction, the share of blood your heart pumps out with each beat.

The scan is painless apart from an IV or a needle in your arm. You lie still on a table while the camera takes pictures, and most people go back to their normal day right after.

This page explains why a MUGA scan is ordered, how to get ready, what happens during the test, the risks, and what your results mean for your treatment.

What Is a MUGA Scan?

A MUGA scan is a nuclear medicine test of the heart. You may also see it called radionuclide ventriculography, radionuclide angiography, or a blood pool scan.

A small amount of a radioactive tracer is attached to your red blood cells. As your blood moves through your heart, a gamma camera picks up the tracer and makes moving pictures of the heart's main pumping chambers. Small sticky pads on your chest record your heartbeat, so the camera can take pictures at the same point in each beat and combine them.

From these pictures, a computer works out your ejection fraction. That is the percentage of blood in the lower left chamber of your heart that is pumped out each time it squeezes. The test also shows how evenly the heart walls move.

A MUGA scan gives a very repeatable number, which is why it is useful for comparing one scan with the next during treatment.

Kinds of MUGA Scan

  • Resting MUGA scan. The pictures are taken while you lie still. This is the kind most often used to monitor the heart during cancer treatment.
  • Exercise or stress MUGA scan. Pictures are taken at rest and again while you pedal a bike or after a medicine that makes your heart work harder. It shows how your heart responds to effort. This kind is used less often today.

Why a MUGA Scan Is Ordered

The most common reason is to check the heart before and during cancer treatment. Doctors may order a MUGA scan to:

  • Get a starting measurement of how well your heart pumps before treatment begins
  • Watch for changes during treatment with medicines that can affect the heart muscle, such as anthracycline chemotherapy (for example, doxorubicin) and some HER2-targeted medicines (for example, trastuzumab)
  • Decide whether a treatment can continue, or whether a dose or schedule should change, if the heart's pumping drops
  • Follow heart health after treatment, for some people who had treatments that can affect the heart
  • Check how well the heart pumps in people with heart failure or other heart conditions, outside of cancer care

An echocardiogram, an ultrasound of the heart, is used for the same purpose and is more common today. A MUGA scan is often chosen when echocardiogram pictures are not clear enough, or when a very consistent number is needed over many months.

Who Needs One

People starting or receiving cancer treatments that can affect the heart, especially those with other heart risks such as older age, high blood pressure, diabetes, earlier heart disease, or earlier chest radiation. Your oncologist decides whether you need one and how often, often every few months during treatment. If heart changes are found, a cardiologist may join your care. You can read more on our page about cardiotoxicity, heart damage from cancer treatment.

How to Prepare

Most people need little preparation. Follow the instructions you are given, which may differ from these general steps.

  • Eating and drinking. You can usually eat and drink as normal for a resting scan. For an exercise scan, you may be asked not to eat for a few hours beforehand.
  • Caffeine and tobacco. You may be asked to skip coffee, tea, energy drinks and smoking for some hours before an exercise scan.
  • Medicines. Keep taking your usual medicines unless your care team tells you otherwise. Ask about heart medicines before an exercise scan.
  • Tell your care team if you are or might be pregnant, or if you are breastfeeding.
  • For an exercise scan, wear comfortable clothes and walking shoes.
  • Bring something to read. The visit can take an hour or more.
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What Happens During the Test

You change into a gown and lie on a table. A technologist places sticky pads on your chest to track your heartbeat.

Next, your red blood cells are labeled with the tracer, in one of two ways. In some places, a small amount of blood is drawn, mixed with the tracer, and given back through a vein. In others, you get two injections about 20 minutes apart. You may feel a brief cool feeling as the tracer goes in.

The gamma camera is then placed close to your chest. It does not surround you, and it makes no noise. You lie still while it takes pictures from a few angles, usually for 30 to 60 minutes in all. For an exercise scan, you pedal a stationary bike while lying down and more pictures are taken as the effort increases.

When the pictures are done, the pads come off and you can go back to your usual activities and diet. Drink extra water for the rest of the day, which helps the tracer leave your body.

Risks

A MUGA scan is a safe test.

  • Radiation. The amount of radiation is small, about the same as from other common nuclear medicine and imaging tests. The tracer loses its radioactivity within a day or two. Your care team weighs this small amount against what the scan tells them, especially if you have scans every few months.
  • Pregnancy and breastfeeding. Tell your care team before the scan. You may be given instructions about pausing breastfeeding for a short time.
  • The needle. You may have mild pain or a small bruise where the needle went in.
  • Allergic reaction. A reaction to the tracer is very rare.

Call your care team the same day for redness, swelling or pain where the needle went in that gets worse. An exercise scan is done with staff watching your heart, and they stop the test if you feel unwell.

Understanding Your Results

A doctor trained in nuclear medicine or cardiology reads the scan and sends a report to the doctor who ordered it. That doctor will go over the results with you.

  • Ejection fraction. In most adults, an ejection fraction of about 50 percent or higher is normal. Your result is compared with your starting scan, because a drop from your own baseline matters as much as the number.
  • A normal result. Your heart is pumping well, and treatment usually continues as planned. You may have repeat scans during treatment.
  • A drop in ejection fraction. Your oncologist may pause a medicine, change the dose, or ask a cardiologist to see you. Heart medicines can often help the heart recover, and many people are able to go back to their cancer treatment.
  • Uneven wall movement. This can point to an area of the heart that is not getting enough blood or is weakened, and may lead to more heart tests.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a MUGA scan mean my doctor thinks I have heart problems?

Usually not. Most MUGA scans in cancer care are ordered to get a starting point before treatment begins, so any change later can be found early.

How often will I need a MUGA scan?

It depends on your treatment and your heart health. Some people have one scan before treatment. Others have repeat scans every few months while on a medicine that can affect the heart.

Is the tracer the same as contrast dye?

No. The tracer is a tiny amount of radioactive material attached to your own blood cells. It is not the iodine dye used for CT scans, and allergic reactions to it are very rare.

How is a MUGA scan different from an echocardiogram?

Both measure how well your heart pumps. An echocardiogram uses sound waves and no radiation. A MUGA scan uses a small amount of tracer and gives a very consistent number from one scan to the next. Your care team chooses the test that fits you.

Can I be around other people after the scan?

Yes. The amount of tracer is small and fades quickly. If you are breastfeeding or caring for a baby, ask your care team whether you should take any steps for the rest of the day.

Who Provides It and Where

MUGA scans are done in nuclear medicine and cardiology departments by nuclear medicine technologists, and read by nuclear medicine doctors, radiologists or cardiologists. The scan is often ordered by your oncologist. Find a location near you below.

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Cancer

Oncologists order a MUGA scan before and during chemotherapy and targeted therapy that can weaken the heart.

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Heart & Vascular

Cardiologists read the heart's pumping strength and step in with care if cancer treatment lowers it.

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Radiology

Nuclear medicine teams label the blood with tracer and take the gamma camera pictures of the beating heart.

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Conditions
Cardiotoxicity

Cardiotoxicity is damage to the heart or blood vessels caused by some cancer treatments. Most people never develop it, and...

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Treatments
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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Bone Scan

A bone scan uses a small amount of a radioactive tracer and a special camera to show areas of bone that are changing or...

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CT Scan

A CT scan uses X-rays and a computer to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, slice by slice. It is quick and...

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

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References

  1. MedlinePlus. Radionuclide Ventriculography.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003829.htm
  2. RadiologyInfo.org (American College of Radiology and Radiological Society of North America). General Nuclear Medicine.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/gennuclear
  3. American Cancer Society. Heart Problems (Cardiotoxicity).
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/side-effects/physical-side-effects/heart-problems.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Definition of MUGA Scan.
    https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/muga-scan
  5. Armenian SH, et al. Prevention and Monitoring of Cardiac Dysfunction in Survivors of Adult Cancers: American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline. Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2017.
    https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2016.70.5400

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Navigational Bronchoscopy

Navigational bronchoscopy guides a thin, flexible scope through your airways to a spot deep in the lung, using a map built from your CT scan, so a doctor can take a small tissue sample. It needs no incision, and most people go home the same day.

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This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

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RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

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MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

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MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

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MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
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RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

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If a CT scan found a spot on your lung, you may be waiting to learn what it is, and that waiting is hard. Most lung nodules turn out not to be cancer. When your doctor needs a closer look, a navigational bronchoscopy is one way to get a sample from a nodule that is small or deep in the lung, without an incision.

A standard bronchoscopy can reach the larger airways near the center of your chest. Many nodules are in the outer parts of the lung, where the airways branch into passages too small and winding to find by sight alone. Navigational bronchoscopy solves that with a 3D map of your airways made from your CT scan. A computer then guides the scope along the planned route, much as a GPS guides a car, to the nodule.

A pathologist examines the sample under a microscope, and that answer guides what comes next, whether that is watching the nodule, treating an infection or planning cancer treatment.

What Is a Navigational Bronchoscopy?

A bronchoscopy is a test in which a doctor passes a thin, flexible tube called a bronchoscope through your mouth and down your windpipe into the airways of your lungs. A navigational bronchoscopy adds guidance so the doctor can reach a target far out in the lung.

Before or on the day of the test, you have a CT scan of your chest. Software turns that scan into a 3D map of your airways and plans a path to the nodule. During the test, sensors and the map show where the scope's tools are in real time, so the doctor can steer through the small branches and take samples from the right spot. You may hear it called electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy, or ENB.

The test is usually done by a pulmonologist, a lung specialist, or a thoracic surgeon.

Kinds of Navigational Bronchoscopy

  • Electromagnetic navigation. A small electromagnetic field around your chest tracks a sensor at the tip of the tools, showing their position on the map. The SPiN Thoracic Navigation System is one such system.
  • Robotic bronchoscopy. The doctor steers a thin robotic scope from a controller, which holds the scope steady once it reaches the nodule.

Either kind can be combined with endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS), which uses a tiny ultrasound probe on the scope to see lymph nodes and other structures between the lungs and guide a needle to sample them. Doing both in one session can diagnose a nodule and check the nearby lymph nodes at the same time.

Why a Navigational Bronchoscopy Is Ordered

A navigational bronchoscopy is ordered to find out what a lung spot is, when the answer will change your care. It can:

  • Take a sample from a lung nodule that has grown or looks suspicious on a CT scan.
  • Diagnose lung cancer and, with EBUS, check whether it has reached the lymph nodes, which helps stage it.
  • Find an infection or inflammation that can look like a nodule on a scan.
  • Place a tiny marker or a small amount of dye next to a nodule, to guide a surgeon removing it or a radiation team aiming treatment at it.

It is one of several ways to sample the lung. Others include a needle biopsy through the chest wall, guided by a CT scan, and surgery to remove the nodule directly.

Who Needs One

You may need one if a CT scan, including a lung cancer screening scan, finds a nodule that is new, growing or has features that call for a closer look. It suits nodules in the outer lung that a standard bronchoscopy cannot reach and that lie along airways the scope can follow. Small nodules that look low risk are often watched with follow-up scans instead. Your doctor will weigh the nodule's size, shape and location, your health and your preferences.

How to Prepare

  • The planning scan. You will have a CT scan of your chest to build the map, sometimes on a separate day.
  • Medicines. Tell your team about every medicine you take, especially blood thinners, aspirin, diabetes medicines and supplements. You may be asked to stop some of them for a few days before the test, and that instruction should come from your care team.
  • Food and drink. You will be asked not to eat or drink for several hours before the test, often from midnight the night before.
  • A ride home. You receive general anesthesia or deep sedation, so arrange for someone to drive you home and stay with you that evening.
  • Health history. Tell your team if you have heart or lung problems, a bleeding problem, or a reaction to anesthesia in the past.
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What Happens During the Test

You lie on your back and receive anesthesia so you are asleep or deeply sedated. A breathing tube or airway device may be placed. The doctor passes the bronchoscope through your mouth into your airways and follows the planned route on the screen to the nodule.

At the nodule, the doctor uses small needles, brushes or forceps to take several samples. X-ray imaging may confirm the position. If EBUS is planned, the doctor samples lymph nodes too. Sometimes a specialist checks a sample in the room to make sure enough tissue was collected. The test often takes about an hour, depending on how many areas are sampled.

Afterward you rest in a recovery area until you are awake. A chest X-ray may be taken to check your lung. You can eat and drink once your cough and swallow return to normal, usually within an hour or two, and most people go home the same day. A sore throat, hoarseness and a mild cough are common for a day or two, and you may cough up a little blood-streaked mucus.

Call 911 for trouble breathing, chest pain, coughing up more than a small amount of blood, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, a cough that is getting worse, or a sore throat that lasts more than a few days.

Risks

Navigational bronchoscopy is generally a low-risk test. The risks include:

  • A collapsed lung (pneumothorax), when air leaks around the lung. It is uncommon, and most cases are small and heal on their own; some need a small tube to remove the air.
  • Bleeding from a sample site, usually minor.
  • Sore throat, hoarseness or cough.
  • Infection or fever.
  • Reactions to anesthesia.

Your doctor will explain how these apply to you.

Understanding Your Results

A pathologist examines the samples, and results usually come back within several days. The doctor who ordered the test will go over them with you.

  • Cancer found. The report gives the type of cancer, and further tests on the sample, such as molecular profiling, may look for changes that some medicines target. With lymph node samples, your team learns the stage and plans treatment.
  • Infection or inflammation found. Your doctor treats the cause, and a follow-up scan checks that the nodule shrinks.
  • No cancer seen. Your team weighs this against how the nodule looks. Because a sample can miss a small area, your doctor may recommend follow-up scans or another test to be sure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I be awake?

No. You are asleep or deeply sedated and should not feel the test. Your throat may be sore afterward.

How is this different from a regular bronchoscopy?

A regular bronchoscopy reaches the larger airways near the center of the chest. Navigational bronchoscopy uses a map from your CT scan to reach nodules far out in the lung.

Is there an incision?

No. The scope goes in through your mouth, so there are no cuts and no stitches.

Can they test the lymph nodes at the same time?

Often, yes. Endobronchial ultrasound can sample lymph nodes in the middle of the chest during the same session, which helps stage a lung cancer.

What if the result does not give a clear answer?

Sometimes the sample does not answer the question. Your team may suggest a follow-up scan, a needle biopsy through the chest wall, or surgery to remove the nodule.

Who Provides It and Where

Navigational bronchoscopy is performed by pulmonologists and thoracic surgeons, working with radiologists and pathologists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its thoracic team at the Rod Taylor Thoracic Center performs navigational bronchoscopy to biopsy small lung nodules, and endobronchial ultrasound to diagnose lung cancer and enlarged lymph nodes. The center also offers robotic bronchoscopy for nodules that are hard to reach.
  • Orlando Health Melbourne Hospital and Orlando Health Sebastian River Hospital offer bronchoscopy with the SPiN Thoracic Navigation System to sample small lung nodules found on a scan.
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Comprehensive Care

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Cancer

The thoracic team samples small lung nodules to diagnose lung cancer and stage it in the same session.

Learn More About Cancer
Pulmonary / Critical Care

Pulmonologists guide the scope through the airways to reach nodules deep in the lung.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Radiology

The chest CT scan builds the airway map, and imaging confirms where the tools are during the test.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

Learn More About Lung Cancer
Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

Learn More About Lung Nodules
Thoracic Cancers

Thoracic cancers are cancers that start in the chest: the lungs, the esophagus, the space between the lungs, the chest wall...

Learn More About Thoracic Cancers
Treatments
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Lung Cancer Screening

Lung cancer screening is a yearly low-dose CT scan of the chest for adults at higher risk because of their smoking history....

Learn More About Lung Cancer Screening
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

Learn More About Molecular Profiling
Mediastinal Surgery

Mediastinal surgery reaches the space in the middle of your chest, between the lungs, to take a tissue sample or remove a...

Learn More About Mediastinal Surgery

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Prostate Cancer Screening

Prostate cancer screening checks for prostate cancer before you have symptoms, most often with a PSA blood test. Whether and when to start is a choice you make with your doctor, usually in your 50s, or earlier if you are Black or prostate cancer runs in your family.

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This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Prostate cancer screening is different from most cancer screening in one important way: it is a choice. A PSA blood test can find prostate cancer early, when it is easiest to treat. It can also find small, slow-growing cancers that would never have caused harm, and treating those brings side effects without a benefit.

That is why every major guideline asks men to weigh the trade-offs with a doctor before testing. Some men, especially those at higher risk, decide that finding a cancer early is worth the chance of extra tests. Others decide to wait or to stop.

Screening has become more accurate and less worrying over the years. Today, a high PSA is often followed by a prostate MRI before any biopsy, and many small cancers that are found are watched closely instead of treated right away. This page explains who should talk about screening and when, what the tests involve, how to prepare and what your results mean.

What Is a Prostate Cancer Screening?

A prostate cancer screening is a test for men with no symptoms. It looks for signs that cancer may be present in the prostate, the small gland below the bladder that helps make semen.

Screening does not diagnose cancer. A result that is higher than expected means you may need more tests, and only a biopsy can confirm cancer. If you already have symptoms, such as trouble urinating or blood in your urine, tell your doctor; you need an exam to find the cause, which is usually not cancer.

Kinds of Prostate Cancer Screening

  • PSA blood test. PSA, or prostate-specific antigen, is a protein made by the prostate. Higher levels can be a sign of cancer, and also of an enlarged prostate, an infection or recent activity that presses on the gland. This is the main screening test.
  • Digital rectal exam. A doctor feels the back of the prostate with a gloved, lubricated finger to check for lumps or hard areas. It takes a few seconds and is often done along with a PSA test.
  • Follow-up tests. When a PSA is raised, your doctor may repeat it or add other blood or urine tests that help predict whether a biopsy will find a cancer that needs treatment. A prostate MRI often comes next.

Why a Prostate Cancer Screening Is Ordered

The goal is to find a fast-growing prostate cancer before it spreads, when treatment is most likely to cure it. Screening lowers the chance of dying from prostate cancer for some men and lowers the chance of the cancer spreading. The benefit is small for any one man, and it has to be weighed against the chance of a false alarm and of treating a cancer that would never have caused harm.

Who Needs One

Guidelines agree that screening is a personal decision made with your doctor.

  • The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says men 55 to 69 should decide with their doctor whether to have a PSA test. It recommends against routine screening at 70 and older.
  • The American Cancer Society says to start the conversation at 50 for men at average risk, at 45 for Black men and men with a father or brother diagnosed before 65, and at 40 for men with more than one close relative diagnosed young.
  • Men with an inherited gene change, such as BRCA2, may be advised to start earlier. Genetic counseling can help you understand your risk.
  • Men expected to live fewer than 10 more years usually do not benefit, because most prostate cancers grow slowly.

If you choose screening, how often you repeat it depends on your PSA level. Men with a low PSA may only need it every two years or longer.

How to Prepare

A PSA test needs no fasting, but a few things can raise your PSA for a short time:

  • Ejaculation in the 48 hours before the test.
  • Long bicycle rides or other activity that presses on the area in the days before.
  • A urinary tract infection or a recent procedure on the bladder or prostate.

Tell your doctor if you take finasteride or dutasteride for an enlarged prostate or hair loss. These medicines lower PSA by about half, and your result has to be read with that in mind.

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What Happens During the Test

For a PSA test, a small amount of blood is drawn from a vein in your arm. It takes a few minutes, and you can go back to your day right away.

If you also have a digital rectal exam, you stand and bend forward or lie on your side with your knees drawn up. The doctor gently inserts a gloved, lubricated finger into the rectum. You may feel pressure or a brief urge to urinate. It is over in less than a minute.

Risks

The tests themselves are very safe. A small bruise where blood was drawn is the most common effect.

False alarms. Many men with a raised PSA do not have cancer. Follow-up tests and a biopsy can bring worry, and a biopsy has a small chance of bleeding or infection.

Missed cancers. A normal PSA does not rule out cancer.

Overdiagnosis. Screening finds some cancers that would never cause symptoms. Treating them can lead to leaking urine or erection problems without a benefit. Watching a low-risk cancer closely, called active surveillance, lowers this risk.

Understanding Your Results

PSA is measured in nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). There is no single normal number. Levels rise with age and with prostate size, and many doctors use 4 ng/mL as a point to look more closely, with a lower level in younger men.

A low PSA usually means you go back on your usual schedule, or stop screening if your doctor agrees.

A raised PSA often means a repeat test first, since levels can rise for a time. If it stays high, your doctor may recommend a prostate MRI, other blood or urine tests, or a biopsy to check for cancer. How fast PSA rises over time also helps your doctor read the result.

An abnormal rectal exam usually leads to an MRI or a biopsy, whatever your PSA.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the PSA test the same as a cancer diagnosis?

No. It is a blood test that shows whether more testing makes sense. Only a biopsy can show cancer.

Do I still need a rectal exam?

Not always. Many doctors rely on PSA alone for screening and use the exam when PSA is raised or you have symptoms. Ask what your doctor recommends.

When can I stop screening?

Most men stop around 70, or sooner if they have other serious health problems. Talk with your doctor about when stopping fits your health.

Will my insurance cover a PSA test?

Most insurance plans cover prostate cancer screening. Check your plan's benefits before your appointment.

My PSA is high. Does that mean I need a biopsy?

Not right away. A repeat PSA and a prostate MRI often come first, and they help many men avoid a biopsy they do not need.

Who Provides It and Where

The conversation about screening usually starts with your primary care doctor, and urologists see men whose results need a closer look. Find a doctor to start the conversation near you.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Urologic Cancer Center sees men with a raised PSA or an abnormal exam, with 3T prostate MRI and MRI-fusion biopsy to look more closely.
  • Orlando Health Medical Group Urology. Urologists who perform MRI-fusion prostate biopsy.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Urology. Its urology team talks with men about prostate cancer screening and their own risk.
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Cancer

A screening that finds a fast-growing prostate cancer leads to oncology care while it can still be cured.

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Pathology

Pathologists grade prostate biopsy samples taken after a raised PSA to show whether cancer is present.

Learn More About Pathology
Urology

Urologists see men with a raised PSA or abnormal exam and decide whether an MRI or biopsy comes next.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer
Urologic Cancers

Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male...

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Treatments
MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

Learn More About Genetic Counseling
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Prostate Cancer: Screening. 2018.
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/prostate-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. American Cancer Society Recommendations for Prostate Cancer Early Detection.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/prostate-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/acs-recommendations.html
  3. National Cancer Institute. Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/psa-fact-sheet
  4. National Cancer Institute. Prostate Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/patient/prostate-screening-pdq
  5. MedlinePlus. PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) Test.
    https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/psa-prostate-specific-antigen-test/

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at the tumor and very little beyond it, which can lower the dose to healthy tissue nearby. It is used for some cancers in children and adults, often near sensitive organs.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your care team has mentioned proton therapy, you may be wondering how it differs from the radiation you have heard about and whether it is right for you. Proton therapy is radiation therapy. It works the same way, by damaging the DNA of cancer cells, and the sessions feel much the same. The difference is in how the beam behaves inside the body.

An X-ray beam passes all the way through you, leaving some radiation in the tissue on the far side of the tumor. A proton beam can be set to stop at the tumor. That makes proton therapy useful when a tumor lies close to an organ that is sensitive to radiation, such as the brain, spinal cord, eyes, heart or lungs, and for children, whose growing bodies are more sensitive to radiation.

Proton therapy is not the best choice for every cancer, and your radiation oncologist will weigh it against other options. This page explains how it works, what it is used for, how to get ready, what a course of treatment is like, its side effects and what to ask.

What Is Proton Therapy and How Does It Work?

Protons are tiny, positively charged particles found in the center of every atom. In proton therapy, a machine called a cyclotron speeds protons up to very high energy. The beam is then shaped and adjusted so it matches the size, shape and depth of your tumor.

Like all radiation therapy, protons damage the DNA inside cancer cells so the cells stop dividing and die. What sets protons apart is where they deposit their energy. They release a little energy as they enter the body and most of it at a set depth, then stop. By choosing that depth, the team can place the highest dose in the tumor and keep the dose low in the tissue beyond it.

Less radiation to healthy tissue can mean fewer side effects, both during treatment and years later. For some patients, it can also allow the team to treat a tumor near a sensitive organ that would be hard to reach safely with X-rays.

What Proton Therapy Is Used For

Proton therapy is used most often for cancers that have not spread and for tumors near organs that are sensitive to radiation. It may be given alone or with chemotherapy, surgery, other radiation or targeted therapy. Uses include:

  • Brain tumors and spinal tumors, to reduce radiation to the healthy brain and spinal cord.
  • Cancers in children, to limit radiation to growing organs and lower the chance of late effects.
  • Head and neck cancers, including tumors of the sinuses and the base of the skull.
  • Breast cancer, especially on the left side, to reduce radiation to the heart.
  • Lung cancer and lymphoma in the chest, to protect the lungs and heart.
  • Prostate cancer, to reduce radiation to the rectum and bladder.
  • Some sarcomas and abdominal cancers, such as some pancreatic cancers.
  • Some benign tumors, where long-term protection of nearby tissue matters.

Your team decides whether proton therapy fits based on the type, size and location of your tumor, your other treatment and your overall health.

Before You Start

The evaluation. At your first visit you meet a radiation oncologist and the proton therapy team. Together you talk through your treatment goals and the options. The plan may be proton therapy alone, proton therapy with other treatment, or a different treatment if that suits you better.

Insurance. Many insurance plans, including Medicare, cover proton therapy, though some require approval before treatment. Check your coverage early, and ask the team about financial assistance and self-pay options if your plan does not cover it.

CT simulation. If proton therapy is recommended, you have a planning scan, usually a CT and sometimes an MRI or PET scan, in the position you will lie in for treatment. The team may make a mask or mold to hold you still.

Planning and a dress rehearsal. Physicists and dosimetrists build a plan that targets the tumor while protecting nearby tissue. Before your first treatment, a dress rehearsal checks your position and the plan. Treatment may start the same day or the next.

Tell your team about your medicines, any implanted device such as a pacemaker, earlier radiation and any chance of pregnancy.

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What to Expect

Your sessions. Most courses are given five days a week for several weeks. A session usually takes about 30 minutes, and most of that time is spent positioning you. The beam is on for only a few minutes. Plan on about an hour at the center each day.

How it feels. Proton therapy does not hurt. You do not feel the beam. Some people find it uncomfortable to lie still in one position, so tell your team if you need help getting comfortable. Children who cannot stay still may receive medicine to help them sleep during each session.

During your course. You see your radiation oncologist regularly to check side effects. Many people go to work or school after their sessions.

After treatment. On your last day, many centers invite you to ring a bell to mark the end of treatment. About a month later, you meet your radiation oncologist to review your progress and any symptoms. Follow-up scans show how the tumor responded.

Call your care team the same day for skin in the treated area that blisters or weeps, or pain that keeps you from eating or drinking. Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain, trouble breathing, a seizure or new weakness or numbness in your legs.

Side Effects and Risks

Side effects depend on the area treated and on any other treatment you receive. Many people have fewer or milder side effects than with X-ray radiation for the same area, though this varies.

  • Tiredness, which may build over the course of treatment.
  • Skin redness or irritation in the treated area, sometimes more than with X-rays.
  • Hair loss only in the area treated, which may be temporary.
  • Effects specific to the area, such as headaches or nausea (brain), a sore mouth or throat (head and neck), or bowel and bladder irritation (pelvis).
  • Late effects, which are less common and depend on the area.

Your radiation oncologist will explain the side effects most likely for you and how the team helps you manage them.

Benefits: What It Can Do

For the right cancers, proton therapy can deliver an effective dose to the tumor while lowering the dose to the healthy tissue around it. That can mean fewer side effects during treatment and a lower chance of some late effects, which matters most for children and for tumors near the brain, spine, eyes or heart. It can also allow a full dose where a nearby organ would otherwise limit treatment. Your team will tell you what proton therapy can do for your cancer and how it compares with your other options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is proton therapy better than regular radiation?

For some cancers, it can lower the dose to healthy tissue. For many others, X-ray radiation works just as well. Your radiation oncologist recommends the option that fits your cancer.

Will I be radioactive after a session?

No. You do not give off radiation after proton therapy, and it is safe to be near family, children and pets.

Can children have proton therapy?

Yes, when their medical team recommends it. Children may benefit most, because their growing bodies are more sensitive to radiation.

I live outside the area. Is there help with lodging?

The Orlando Health Cancer Institute keeps a list of hotels near its downtown Orlando campus with arranged rates for patients. Ask when you schedule your first appointment.

Can I have proton therapy if I already had radiation?

Sometimes. Proton therapy is one option when an area has been treated before, because it can limit the dose to nearby tissue. Your radiation oncologist will review your past treatment.

Who Provides It and Where

Proton therapy is planned and given by a team of radiation oncologists, radiation physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists and nurses, working with your other cancer doctors.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Proton therapy is given for adults and children at the Marjorie and Leonard Williams Center for Proton Therapy, 1400 S. Orange Ave., 1st Floor, Orlando, FL 32806, on the institute's downtown Orlando campus. For information, call (321) 843-3762. Children with brain tumors are cared for through the Pediatric Brain Tumor Program with Orlando Health Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that can ease stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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Cancer

Radiation oncologists choose proton therapy for tumors near sensitive organs and for many childhood cancers.

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Neuroscience

Neurosurgeons and neuro-oncologists plan proton therapy with radiation oncologists for brain and spine tumors.

Learn More About Neuroscience
Urology

Urologists refer men with prostate cancer for proton therapy to lower the dose to the bladder and rectum.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

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Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

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Breast Cancer

Breast cancer begins when cells in the breast grow out of control and form a tumor. It is one of the most common cancers,...

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Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

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Head and Neck Cancers

Head and neck cancers start in the mouth, throat, voice box, nose, sinuses, salivary glands, thyroid or the skin of the head...

Learn More About Head and Neck Cancers
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

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Treatments
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

Learn More About Targeted Therapy
Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions...

Learn More About Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Radiation Therapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/radiation-therapy
  2. American Cancer Society. External Beam Radiation Therapy for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/radiation/external-beam-radiation-therapy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Radiation Therapy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/radiationtherapy.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Proton Therapy (definition).
    https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/proton-therapy

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so they stop growing. Most forms treat only the area they are aimed at. It can be used to cure a cancer, alongside surgery or medicines, or to ease pain and other symptoms.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended radiation, you may have questions about what it will feel like, how long it takes and how it will affect your daily life. An external beam treatment session is painless, the beam is on for only minutes and it does not make you radioactive. Many people keep working or caring for their family through a course of treatment.

Radiation is one of the most common cancer treatments. About half of people treated for cancer receive it at some point. It is a local treatment, which means it works on the part of the body where it is aimed, and the care team plans each treatment to protect the healthy tissue around the target.

Radiation therapy is planned and overseen by a radiation oncologist, a doctor who specializes in it, working with a team of physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists and nurses. This page explains how it works, the kinds you may hear about, what it is used for, how to get ready, what a course of treatment is like and the side effects to know about.

What Is Radiation Therapy and How Does It Work?

Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays or particles, such as X-rays or protons, to damage the DNA inside cancer cells. Cells with damaged DNA stop dividing and die, and the body clears them away over the following weeks and months. That is why the effect of radiation builds over time and keeps working after treatment ends.

Healthy cells in the treated area are affected too, but they are better able to repair themselves. Treatment is usually split into many small daily doses, called fractions, which gives healthy tissue time to recover between sessions while the cancer cells keep taking damage.

Because radiation acts only where it is aimed, it is often combined with treatments that reach the whole body, such as chemotherapy, hormone therapy or immunotherapy.

Kinds of Radiation Therapy

  • External beam radiation. The most common kind. A machine called a linear accelerator aims beams at the target from outside your body. Modern forms shape the beam to the tumor and use imaging before each session to line it up precisely.
  • Adaptive radiation. Some machines, such as Ethos, take a CT image at the start of each session so the team can adjust the plan to the day's anatomy as the tumor shrinks or nearby organs shift.
  • Stereotactic radiation. Very high, precise doses given in one to five sessions. For the brain it is called stereotactic radiosurgery; elsewhere in the body it is stereotactic body radiation therapy.
  • Proton therapy. Uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at the tumor and very little beyond it.
  • Brachytherapy, or internal radiation. A radioactive source is placed inside or right next to the tumor for a short time, or left in place as tiny seeds. It is used for some gynecologic, breast, head and neck, airway, skin and prostate cancers.
  • Radiation given as a medicine. A radioactive drug travels through the blood to cancer cells, such as radioactive iodine for some thyroid cancers or radium 223 for prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. Radioembolization delivers tiny radioactive beads to tumors in the liver.

What Radiation Therapy Is Used For

By goal:

  • To cure a cancer, alone or with chemotherapy, as with some head and neck, cervical, prostate and lung cancers.
  • Before surgery, to shrink a tumor so it is easier to remove, as with some rectal cancers.
  • After surgery, to destroy cancer cells that may remain. After a lumpectomy for breast cancer, radiation is the usual next step.
  • To ease symptoms, called palliative radiation, such as shrinking a tumor that presses on a nerve or bone and causes pain.

By condition: radiation is part of the plan for many cancers, including prostate, lung, head and neck, brain and spine tumors, cervical, anal and lymphoma, and for cancer that has spread to the bone (bone metastasis). It is also used for a few conditions that are not cancer, such as some benign brain tumors.

Before You Start

The consultation. You meet your radiation oncologist, who reviews your scans, pathology and other treatment, and explains the goal, the number of sessions and the likely side effects for the area being treated.

Simulation. This mapping visit uses a CT scan, and sometimes MRI or PET, in the exact position you will lie in for treatment. The team may make a mold or a mesh mask to help you stay still, and may place a few tiny permanent skin marks to line up the beams.

Planning. Physicists and dosimetrists design your plan, and your doctor reviews it. This usually takes a week or two. The wait is normal and is spent getting the plan right.

Tell your team about: all your medicines and supplements, any pacemaker or defibrillator, earlier radiation to any part of your body, and any chance you could be pregnant. Ask about protecting your fertility before treatment if that matters to you.

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What to Expect

Your sessions. Most external beam courses are given once a day, Monday through Friday, for one to eight weeks. Some shorter courses take five sessions or fewer. Each visit takes about 15 to 30 minutes, most of it spent getting you into position. The beam itself is on for only a few minutes. You do not feel it, see it or hear anything beyond the machine moving. The therapists watch and talk with you from the next room the whole time.

Weekly check-ins. You see your radiation oncologist or nurse once a week to check side effects and adjust care.

You are not radioactive after external beam radiation, and it is safe to be close to children and pregnant people. After some internal treatments or radioactive medicines, you may need to limit close contact for a short time; your team will give you instructions.

Finishing treatment. Side effects often peak in the last week or two of treatment and the week or two after, then ease over the following weeks. Follow-up visits with scans or blood tests show how the cancer responded.

Call your care team the same day for skin that blisters, peels or weeps, pain that keeps you from eating or drinking, or diarrhea that does not ease with the steps your team gave you. Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain, trouble breathing, a seizure, or new weakness or numbness in your legs.

Side Effects and Risks

Side effects depend on the part of the body treated and the dose. Most are temporary and improve within weeks of finishing.

  • Tiredness, which builds over the course of treatment.
  • Skin changes in the treated area: redness, dryness, itching or peeling, like a sunburn. Your team will tell you which lotions to use.
  • Hair loss only in the area treated.
  • Effects specific to the area: a sore mouth, dry mouth or trouble swallowing (head and neck); nausea (abdomen); diarrhea, bladder irritation or sexual changes (pelvis); a cough or shortness of breath (chest).
  • Late effects, months or years later, which are less common: scarring or stiffness, changes in fertility, swelling in an arm or leg (lymphedema therapy can help) and, rarely, a second cancer.

Your team helps you manage each side effect as it comes.

Benefits: What It Can Do

Radiation can cure some cancers on its own or with chemotherapy, and for some people it allows them to avoid or limit surgery. After surgery, it lowers the chance a cancer returns in the same place. When a cure is not the goal, it can shrink tumors that cause pain, bleeding or pressure and improve daily life. What it can do for you depends on your cancer, its stage and the rest of your plan, and your radiation oncologist will explain the goal for your treatment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does radiation therapy hurt?

No. You do not feel the beam. Holding still can be uncomfortable, and the team helps you find a position you can keep.

Can I keep working during treatment?

Many people do, especially with an early or late appointment time. Tiredness may build toward the end, so plan for more rest then.

What should I do for my skin?

Wash the area with mild soap and lukewarm water, wear loose clothing and keep the area out of the sun. Use only the creams your team recommends.

Can I have radiation again in the same area?

Sometimes. It depends on the earlier dose and how much time has passed. Your radiation oncologist will review your past records.

How will I know if it worked?

Results are not immediate. Your team checks your response with scans or blood tests at follow-up visits, often starting a few weeks to a few months after treatment.

Who Provides It and Where

Radiation therapy is planned and given by radiation oncologists with physicists, dosimetrists, radiation therapists and nurses, working with your surgeons and medical oncologists.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its radiation oncologists treat every kind of cancer at Orlando Health locations across Central and West Florida, with external beam, adaptive and stereotactic radiation, brachytherapy, radioactive medicines and proton therapy. The radiation department is accredited by the American College of Radiology, and physicians review each patient's treatment plan in a daily quality meeting.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Radiation oncologists plan treatment together with surgeons and medical oncologists for cancers of the colon, rectum, liver, pancreas and stomach.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Radiation Oncology offers radiation therapy in the Tampa Bay area.
  • Integrative Medicine Program. Support that can ease stress and side effects during and after treatment.
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Radiation oncologists use radiation to cure, to shrink tumors before or after surgery and to ease pain from cancer.

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ENT / Otolaryngology

Head and neck surgeons send patients for radiation of the throat, mouth and voice box, alone or after surgery.

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Women's

Breast and gynecologic cancer teams pair radiation with lumpectomy or use internal radiation for cervical and uterine cancer.

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Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

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Anal Cancer

Anal cancer starts in the anal canal, the short passage at the end of the bowel. It is uncommon and most often linked to...

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Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

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Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

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Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

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Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

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Treatments
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

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Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

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Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions...

Learn More About Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy
Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at...

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Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Radiation Therapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/radiation-therapy
  2. American Cancer Society. Radiation Therapy.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/radiation.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Radiation Therapy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/radiationtherapy.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Radiation Therapy Side Effects.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/radiation-therapy/side-effects

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and releases tiny beads that hold radiation straight into the tumor. It needs only a small nick in the skin, and most people go home the same day.

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This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

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MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

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MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

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MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

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RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

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  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

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Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has suggested radioembolization, also called Y90 or selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT), you may wonder how radiation can be given through a blood vessel and what that means for you. This page explains how it works, who it can help, the two visits it usually takes and what the weeks afterward are like.

Tumors in the liver draw most of their blood supply from the hepatic artery, while healthy liver tissue is fed mainly by a different vessel. Radioembolization uses that difference. Millions of beads, each far thinner than a human hair, travel with the blood into the tumor and lodge in its smallest vessels. There they give off radiation over the following days, aimed at the tumor while sparing much of the healthy liver around it.

Radioembolization can treat cancer that started in the liver and cancer that has spread there from other organs. For some people it controls the tumors for a long time, and for some it shrinks them enough to make surgery or a transplant possible later.

What Is Radioembolization?

Radioembolization is a minimally invasive treatment that places radioactive beads, called microspheres, directly into the blood vessels that feed a liver tumor. The beads contain yttrium-90, a radioactive substance that gives off radiation over a short distance, so most of the dose stays in and near the tumor.

It combines two ideas. "Radio" refers to the radiation the beads deliver. "Embolization" means blocking blood vessels, and the beads also lodge in the tumor's small vessels. The radiation does most of the work.

The treatment is done by an interventional radiologist, a doctor who treats disease through blood vessels using imaging as a guide, working with radiation oncologists, nuclear medicine specialists and your liver team. The radiation fades over the two weeks after treatment and is gone in about a month. The beads stay in the liver for good without causing harm.

Kinds of Radioembolization

  • Glass microspheres (TheraSphere) and resin microspheres (SIR-Spheres) are the two types of beads in use. Both contain yttrium-90. Your team chooses between them based on the type of tumor and the plan.
  • Treatment of a whole lobe or of a segment. The beads can be released into the artery that feeds one side of the liver, or more selectively into a small segment that holds the tumor. Treating a small segment with a high dose is sometimes called radiation segmentectomy.

Why Radioembolization Is Performed

Radioembolization is used for tumors in the liver that cannot be removed with surgery, or alongside other treatments, including:

  • Hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common cancer that starts in the liver. Learn more about liver cancer.
  • Colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver and cannot be removed with surgery. See colon cancer and rectal cancer.
  • Neuroendocrine tumors that have spread to the liver. See neuroendocrine tumors.
  • Bile duct cancer that started inside the liver, and some other cancers that have spread there.

Its goals vary by person: to control the tumors and ease symptoms, to shrink tumors so surgery to remove part of the liver becomes possible, or to keep cancer in check while someone waits for a liver transplant.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if the cancer is mainly in the liver, your liver still works reasonably well, and you are well enough to be up and about most of the day. Your team also checks your scans, your blood tests and how blood flows from your liver to your lungs and bowel. Radioembolization is one of several options, along with tumor embolization, tumor ablation, histotripsy, radiation therapy and medicines such as chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy.

How to Prepare

  • A planning procedure first. About one to two weeks before treatment, you have a mapping angiogram. The doctor passes a thin tube through an artery to the liver, takes pictures of its blood vessels, and may close off small vessels that lead to the stomach or bowel. A small amount of a tracer is then released and a scan shows where it travels, including how much reaches the lungs. This lets the team set a safe dose.
  • Scans and blood tests. A CT scan or MRI and blood work show the size of the tumors and how well your liver and kidneys work.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to pause.
  • Food and drink. You will be asked not to eat for several hours before each procedure.
  • A ride home. You receive sedation, so arrange for someone to drive you home.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

Treatment day looks much like the planning visit. You receive medicine to relax you, and the doctor numbs a small spot at the top of your leg or your wrist. A thin tube called a catheter is threaded through the artery to the vessels that feed the tumor, guided by X-ray. The beads are released through the catheter. The procedure typically takes about an hour, and you feel little or nothing as the beads go in.

After the Procedure

You rest for a few hours while the nurses watch the puncture site. Most people go home the same day. Your team will give you simple radiation safety steps for the first days, such as limits on close contact with young children and anyone who is pregnant.

Recovery

For a week or two, many people feel tired and some have mild nausea, belly discomfort or a low fever. Most return to light activity within a few days.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing, vomiting blood or black, tarry stools, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for belly pain that is getting worse, a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, yellowing of your skin or eyes, or swelling or a growing bruise where the catheter went in.

Risks and Complications

Radioembolization is generally well tolerated. Your doctor will talk through the risks as they apply to you. They include:

  • Tiredness, nausea, belly pain and low fever for a week or two.
  • Bruising or bleeding where the catheter entered the artery.
  • Radiation reaching the stomach or bowel, which can cause an ulcer. The planning visit is done to lower this risk.
  • Radiation reaching the lungs, which can inflame them. This is rare because the planning scan measures it first.
  • Liver strain or injury, especially in a liver that was already weak.
  • Inflammation of the gallbladder.
  • A reaction to the contrast dye used for the X-ray pictures.

Results of Radioembolization

Tumors respond gradually. Your team checks with a CT scan or MRI about one to three months after treatment and at intervals after that. Many tumors shrink or stop growing over the following months. Some people need treatment of the other side of the liver, or a repeat treatment later. For some, radioembolization shrinks tumors enough to allow surgery or a transplant.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I be radioactive after treatment?

Only slightly, and only for a short time. The radiation stays almost entirely inside your liver and fades over about two weeks. Your team will tell you about any simple precautions to follow.

Does radioembolization hurt?

You are given medicine to relax you and the catheter site is numbed, so most people feel little during the procedure. Some have belly discomfort or tiredness afterward.

Why do I need two procedures?

The first visit maps the blood vessels and measures where the beads would travel, so the treatment visit can deliver the right dose safely.

Can I have other treatments too?

Yes. Radioembolization is often combined with medicines, and it does not rule out surgery, ablation or a transplant later. Your team will plan the order with you.

How soon will I know if it worked?

Your first follow-up scan is usually one to three months after treatment, because tumors take time to respond.

Who Provides It and Where

Radioembolization is performed by interventional radiologists, working with radiation oncologists, nuclear medicine specialists, liver surgeons and medical oncologists.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its liver cancer team uses yttrium-90 radioembolization for cancer that has spread to the liver, alongside surgery, ablation, chemoembolization and other treatments.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its advanced radiation therapy team offers radioembolization with both glass and resin microspheres for tumors that started in the liver and tumors that spread there.
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Cancer

Radiation and medical oncologists plan Y90 with liver surgeons for tumors that started in or spread to the liver.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Hepatologists check that the liver is strong enough for treatment and watch its function in the months after.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Radiology

Interventional radiologists map the liver's arteries and guide the catheter that places the radioactive beads.

Learn More About Radiology
Conditions
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

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Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

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Treatments
Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

Learn More About Hepatectomy
Liver Transplant

A liver transplant replaces a liver that no longer works, or one with early cancer, with a healthy liver from a donor. It is...

Learn More About Liver Transplant
Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor...

Learn More About Tumor Embolization
Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation
Histotripsy

Histotripsy uses focused pulses of sound, sent from outside your body, to break apart a tumor in the liver. There are no...

Learn More About Histotripsy
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Liver Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/adult-liver-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Ablation and Embolization for Liver Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/liver-cancer/treating/tumor-ablation.html
  3. RadiologyInfo.org, Radiological Society of North America and American College of Radiology. Radioembolization.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/radioembol

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Rectal Spacers

A rectal spacer is a soft gel placed between the prostate and the rectum before radiation for prostate cancer. It moves the rectum a little farther from the radiation to help protect it. Placement is a short outpatient procedure, and your body absorbs the gel on its own over several months.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If you are about to have radiation for prostate cancer, your doctor may have mentioned a rectal spacer, and you may be wondering why something extra is placed before treatment even starts. The answer comes down to distance. The prostate and the rectum lie right against each other, so radiation aimed at the prostate can also reach the front wall of the rectum. That can lead to bowel side effects during treatment and, for some men, long afterward.

A rectal spacer creates a gap between the two. A gel is injected through a thin needle into the space between the prostate and the rectum, where it firms up within seconds and holds the rectal wall about half an inch away. That small distance lowers the radiation dose the rectum receives.

The gel stays in place through your radiation and is then broken down and absorbed by your body over several months, so it never has to be removed. This page explains how spacers work, who may benefit, how placement goes and what to expect afterward.

What Are Rectal Spacers?

A rectal spacer is a temporary, absorbable gel placed between the prostate and the rectum to protect the rectum during radiation therapy for prostate cancer.

Radiation works by damaging the DNA of cancer cells. Modern radiation is shaped closely to the prostate, but because the rectum touches the back of the prostate, part of its wall can still receive a meaningful dose. A spacer pushes the rectal wall back by about half an inch (1.3 centimeters). Radiation dose falls off quickly with distance, so this gap lowers the dose to the rectum and the chance of bowel side effects.

The spacer material is biocompatible, meaning the body accepts it without harm. It is placed in a short outpatient procedure, often during the same visit as the tiny gold markers, called fiducial markers, that help the radiation team aim each treatment.

Kinds of Rectal Spacers

  • Hydrogel spacer (SpaceOAR). A soft gel made mostly of water. It goes in as a liquid and becomes a gel within seconds. It holds the space for about three months, which covers a typical course of radiation, and is absorbed and passed in the urine within about six months.
  • Hyaluronic acid spacer (Barrigel). A gel based on hyaluronic acid, a substance found naturally in the body. The doctor can shape it during placement to fit your anatomy. It is also absorbed by the body over time.

Your doctor will recommend the spacer that fits your anatomy and your radiation plan.

Why Rectal Spacers Are Performed

A spacer is placed to protect the rectum during radiation for prostate cancer. It can be used with every common form of prostate radiation:

  • External beam radiation therapy, given over several weeks.
  • Stereotactic body radiation therapy, which gives higher doses in about five sessions, where protecting the rectum is especially important.
  • Proton therapy.
  • Brachytherapy, in which radioactive seeds are placed inside the prostate.

By lowering the dose to the rectum, a spacer aims to reduce side effects such as rectal pain, bleeding, diarrhea and urgency to have a bowel movement.

Who Is a Candidate

Most men having radiation for prostate cancer that is contained in the prostate may be candidates. A spacer may not be advised if the cancer has grown through the back of the prostate toward the rectum, if you have an active infection in the area, or if you have had certain surgeries or radiation to the pelvis before. Your radiation oncologist will review your MRI and history and talk with you about whether a spacer makes sense for you.

How to Prepare

  • Medicines. Give your team a full list. You may be asked to pause blood thinners and some supplements for a few days.
  • Bowel preparation. You may be asked to use an enema the morning of the procedure so the rectum is empty and the ultrasound picture is clear.
  • Antibiotics. Some teams give a dose of antibiotic before placement to lower the risk of infection.
  • Food and drink. If you will have general anesthesia or sedation, you will be told when to stop eating and drinking.
  • A ride home. Arrange for someone to drive you if you receive sedation or general anesthesia.

Your team will give you written instructions that fit your situation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You receive either local anesthesia, a numbing injection, or general anesthesia, so you do not feel discomfort. You lie on your back with your legs raised. The doctor places an ultrasound probe in the rectum to see the prostate and rectum clearly, then guides a thin needle through the skin between the scrotum and the anus into the space between the prostate and the rectum. A small amount of fluid opens the space, and the spacer is injected as a liquid that firms into a gel within seconds. The procedure usually takes about 15 to 30 minutes.

After the Procedure

You go home the same day, and many people return to normal activities right away. Your team works with you on the safest plan for returning to your usual routine. Radiation planning scans usually take place within days to a couple of weeks afterward, once the gel is firmly in place.

Recovery

Mild soreness where the needle went in, a feeling of fullness or pressure in the rectum, or a small amount of blood in the urine or stool can happen for a day or two.

Call 911 for chest pain, trouble breathing, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, rectal pain that is getting worse, being unable to pass urine, or swelling or redness between your legs.

Risks and Complications

Spacer placement is a low-risk procedure, and serious problems are uncommon. Your doctor will talk through the risks as they apply to you. They include:

  • Discomfort, pressure or mild pain in the rectum or the area between the legs.
  • Minor bleeding in the urine or stool for a short time.
  • Trouble passing urine for a short time.
  • Infection, rarely including an abscess.
  • The gel reaching the rectal wall, which in rare cases can cause pain, an ulcer or an opening between the rectum and nearby tissue that needs treatment.
  • An allergic reaction to the spacer material, which is rare.

Results of Rectal Spacers

The spacer stays in place through every radiation session, and you will not feel it. In a large randomized study of a hydrogel spacer, men who received one had fewer rectal side effects and better bowel quality of life in the years after radiation than men who did not. Some studies also suggest benefits for urinary and sexual function. Once your radiation is complete, the spacer is absorbed on its own and needs no follow-up procedure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I feel the spacer?

Most men do not feel the spacer once any short-term soreness from placement has passed. It is soft and lies outside the rectum, between its wall and the prostate.

Does the spacer need to be removed?

No. Your body absorbs it on its own after radiation is finished.

Does the spacer change how well radiation treats my cancer?

No. The spacer protects the rectum and does not block radiation from reaching the prostate.

Can I have a spacer if I am having proton therapy or brachytherapy?

Yes. Spacers are used with external beam radiation, stereotactic body radiation therapy, proton therapy and brachytherapy.

When can I get back to my normal routine?

Many men return to normal activities right after placement. Your team will tell you if you should avoid anything for a day or two.

Who Provides It and Where

Rectal spacers are placed by radiation oncologists or urologists, usually as part of planning for prostate radiation.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its prostate and urologic cancer teams and its radiation oncologists offer both SpaceOAR and Barrigel spacers with external beam radiation, stereotactic body radiation therapy, proton therapy and brachytherapy, and place the spacer and the fiducial markers in the same visit before stereotactic treatment.
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Cancer

Radiation oncologists place a spacer before prostate radiation to lower the dose that reaches the rectum.

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Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal specialists treat the rare rectal problems that follow a spacer or prostate radiation.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Urology

Urologists diagnose prostate cancer, help choose radiation and may place the spacer with the fiducial markers.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer starts in the prostate, a small gland below the bladder that helps make semen. It is the most common cancer...

Learn More About Prostate Cancer
Treatments
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions...

Learn More About Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy
Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at...

Learn More About Proton Therapy
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Prostate Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/patient/prostate-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/prostate-cancer/treating/radiation-therapy.html
  3. Mariados N, et al. Hydrogel spacer prospective multicenter randomized controlled pivotal trial: dosimetric and clinical effects of perirectal spacer application in men undergoing prostate image guided intensity modulated radiation therapy. International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics. 2015;92(5):971-977.

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Sigmoidoscopy

A sigmoidoscopy is a short test in which a doctor uses a thin, lighted tube to look inside your rectum and the lower part of your colon for polyps, cancer and other changes. It needs only a simple bowel prep, and most people have it without sedation.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

A sigmoidoscopy is one of several ways to check for colorectal cancer, and you may be reading about it because your doctor offered it as a screening choice or ordered it to look into a symptom such as bleeding from the rectum. Either way, it is a quick test that most people find easier than they expected. Most of the time, the result is normal or shows small growths that can be dealt with early.

The test looks at the last part of the large intestine, where many polyps and colorectal cancers form. Polyps are small growths on the inner lining. Most are harmless, and some can slowly turn into cancer over many years, which is why finding and removing them early helps prevent the disease.

A sigmoidoscopy differs from a colonoscopy in how much of the colon it covers. It looks at about the lower third, needs less preparation, and usually needs no sedation, so you can drive yourself home. If it finds something that needs a closer look, a colonoscopy follows to check the rest of the colon.

What Is a Sigmoidoscopy?

A sigmoidoscopy is a test that lets a doctor see the inside of your rectum and sigmoid colon. The sigmoid colon is the S-shaped last section of the colon, just above the rectum. Some sigmoidoscopies also reach the next section up, called the descending colon.

The doctor uses a sigmoidoscope, a thin, flexible tube about as wide as a finger with a light and a small camera at the tip. Pictures from the camera show on a screen, so the doctor can look closely at the lining. Small tools pass through the scope to take a tissue sample, called a biopsy, or to remove a small polyp.

You may see the test called a flexible sigmoidoscopy or a flex sig. The flexible scope has largely replaced the older rigid one.

Sigmoidoscopy is usually done by a gastroenterologist, a doctor who specializes in the digestive system, or by a colon and rectal surgeon. Some primary care doctors and nurse practitioners are trained to do it as well.

Why a Sigmoidoscopy Is Ordered

A sigmoidoscopy is ordered for two main reasons.

To screen for colorectal cancer in people who have no symptoms. It finds polyps and early cancers in the lower colon, when they are easiest to treat. Removing polyps can stop a cancer before it starts. It is one of several screening tests your doctor may offer, alongside colonoscopy, stool tests and CT colonography. The colorectal cancer screening page compares them.

To look into symptoms or follow up a finding, such as:

  • Bleeding from the rectum or blood in the stool.
  • A change in bowel habits that lasts, such as diarrhea or constipation.
  • Pain in the lower belly or the rectum.
  • A positive stool test, when your doctor wants to start with the lower colon.
  • Inflammation of the lower colon and rectum, such as ulcerative colitis, to see how active it is.

Who Needs One

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the American Cancer Society advise that adults at average risk start colorectal cancer screening at age 45. A sigmoidoscopy is one choice for adults 45 to 75, done every five years, or every ten years when paired with a yearly stool test. Between 76 and 85, the decision to keep screening is made with your doctor.

People at higher risk usually start earlier and are more often advised to have a colonoscopy, which checks the whole colon. That includes people with a parent, sibling or child who had colorectal cancer or advanced polyps, inflammatory bowel disease, or an inherited condition such as Lynch syndrome. Tell your doctor about your family history so they can recommend the right test and timing.

How to Prepare

The lower colon needs to be empty so the doctor can see the lining clearly.

  • The bowel prep. Most people use one or two enemas a couple of hours before the test. Some are asked to follow a clear liquid diet the day before or to take a laxative as well. Follow the instructions your care team gives you.
  • Medicines. Tell your team about every medicine you take, especially blood thinners, aspirin, iron pills and diabetes medicines. Ask whether to stop any of them, and do not stop a blood thinner unless your doctor says so.
  • Getting home. Most people have no sedation and can drive themselves home. If you are given a sedative, bring someone to drive you.
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What Happens During the Test

You lie on your left side with your knees drawn up toward your chest. The doctor places the lubricated scope into your rectum and moves it up into the colon. A little air or carbon dioxide is passed through the scope to open the colon so the lining can be seen.

You may feel pressure, cramping or the urge to have a bowel movement. Breathing slowly and deeply helps. If the doctor sees a polyp, they may take a sample or remove a small one. You will not feel this.

The test takes about 10 to 20 minutes. Afterward you may feel bloated or pass gas for a few hours, and you can usually eat and go back to your normal day right away. If a sample was taken, you may see a small amount of blood with your next bowel movement.

Risks

A sigmoidoscopy is a safe test. Problems are uncommon and include:

  • Bleeding, most often after a biopsy or polyp removal, and usually minor.
  • A tear in the wall of the colon, called a perforation. It is rare and may need surgery to repair.
  • Cramping and bloating from the air, which pass within hours.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for severe belly pain, a belly that is hard and swollen, heavy bleeding from the rectum or bleeding that does not stop, or fainting.

Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, chills, belly pain that is getting worse, or more than a small amount of blood in your stool.

Understanding Your Results

The doctor can often tell you what they saw before you leave. Biopsy results come back from the lab within several days.

  • Normal. No polyps or other changes were found. If the test was for screening, your doctor will tell you when to have the next one, usually in five years, or in ten if you also have a yearly stool test.
  • Polyps found. Most polyps are not cancer. Because polyps found in the lower colon can mean others higher up, your doctor will usually recommend a colonoscopy to check and clear the whole colon. See colorectal polyps.
  • Signs of cancer. If a growth looks like cancer, the biopsy tells your team what it is. A colonoscopy and other tests follow to learn its size and stage, and a team of specialists plans treatment. See colon cancer and rectal cancer.
  • Other findings. The test can also show inflammation, hemorrhoids or small pouches in the colon wall called diverticula, which your doctor will explain.

Because the test sees only the lower colon, a normal result does not rule out a polyp or cancer further up. If you have symptoms that continue, tell your doctor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a sigmoidoscopy hurt?

Most people feel pressure and some cramping, which passes once the scope is out. It is uncomfortable for a few minutes rather than painful.

Will I be asleep?

Usually not. Most sigmoidoscopies are done without sedation, which is why you can drive yourself home afterward.

Is a sigmoidoscopy as good as a colonoscopy?

Both are accepted screening tests. A colonoscopy looks at the whole colon and can remove polyps anywhere, while a sigmoidoscopy checks only the lower part and is done more often. Your doctor will help you choose.

What if they find a polyp?

Small polyps may be sampled or removed during the test. Most are not cancer, and finding one usually means a colonoscopy next to check the rest of the colon.

How often do I need one?

For screening at average risk, every five years, or every ten years if you also have a stool test each year. Your doctor may advise a different schedule based on your results and history.

Who Provides It and Where

Sigmoidoscopy is performed by gastroenterologists and colon and rectal surgeons, with pathologists who examine any samples.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its colorectal cancer screening guidance lists flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years among the screening choices, and its teams care for anyone whose results show cancer.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Specialists in cancers of the colon and rectum, for anyone whose sigmoidoscopy finds a cancer.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health gastroenterologists help patients choose a screening test, with pathology on site.
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Related Service Lines
Cancer

When a sigmoidoscopy biopsy shows cancer, oncologists stage it and plan treatment with your other doctors.

Learn More About Cancer
Colon & Rectal

Colon and rectal surgeons use sigmoidoscopy to check rectal bleeding and to follow the rectum after surgery.

Learn More About Colon & Rectal
Digestive Health

Gastroenterologists perform sigmoidoscopy to screen the lower colon and sample or remove small polyps.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Conditions
Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Colorectal Polyps

Colorectal polyps are small growths on the inner lining of the colon or rectum. They are common, and most are harmless,...

Learn More About Colorectal Polyps
Rectal Cancer

Rectal cancer starts in the rectum, the last few inches of the large intestine. Screening can find it early or stop it...

Learn More About Rectal Cancer
Treatments
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

Learn More About Biopsy
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

Learn More About Colorectal Cancer Screening
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Colorectal Cancer: Screening (2021).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/colorectal-cancer-screening
  2. American Cancer Society. American Cancer Society Guideline for Colorectal Cancer Screening.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/acs-recommendations.html
  3. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Flexible Sigmoidoscopy.
    https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diagnostic-tests/flexible-sigmoidoscopy
  4. MedlinePlus. Sigmoidoscopy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003885.htm

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as it should and looks as natural as possible. It ranges from a few stitches to moving skin from nearby or another part of the body.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Removing a skin cancer is the step that treats it. Sometimes that leaves a wound larger than you expected, often on the face, ears, nose, scalp or hands, where people notice it most. If you are facing that, it is natural to wonder how it will look and whether you will still be able to blink, smile, eat or use your hand the way you did.

Reconstruction answers those questions. A surgeon closes and rebuilds the area using the simplest method that will heal well: stitching the edges together, shifting skin from right next to the wound, placing a patch of skin from somewhere else, or, for large wounds, moving a section of tissue with its own blood supply. Many repairs are done the same day the cancer is removed, in the same office visit.

This page explains the kinds of repair, who needs one, how to prepare, what recovery looks like and what results to expect. Your surgeon will talk through which approach suits the size and place of your wound.

What Is Skin Cancer Reconstruction?

Skin cancer reconstruction is surgery that repairs the area where a skin cancer was taken out. Treatments such as Mohs surgery, excisional surgery and melanoma surgery remove the cancer along with a border of healthy skin, and the wound that remains needs to close. Reconstruction closes it in a way that protects function and appearance.

Repairs are done by dermatologic surgeons, Mohs surgeons, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, and head and neck surgeons, depending on the size, depth and place of the wound. A small repair is usually done under local anesthesia, so you are awake and the area is numb. A larger one may be done in an operating room with sedation or general anesthesia.

Kinds of Skin Cancer Reconstruction

  • Letting the wound heal on its own. Some small, shallow wounds in certain spots heal well with dressings alone.
  • Simple closure. The surgeon stitches the edges together in a straight line.
  • Local flap. Skin and tissue right next to the wound are shifted or rotated to cover it, keeping a close match in color and texture.
  • Skin graft. A thin layer of skin is taken from another area, such as in front of or behind the ear, the neck or the thigh, and placed over the wound.
  • Regional or free flap. For large or deep wounds, a section of skin, fat and sometimes muscle is moved from elsewhere in the body. In a free flap, the surgeon reconnects its tiny blood vessels under a microscope. Flap surgery is a common approach for major defects of the head and neck.
  • Staged repair. Some repairs are done in two or more steps, weeks apart, to give the best final shape.

Why Skin Cancer Reconstruction Is Performed

Treating skin cancer saves lives, and the surgery can leave a scar or change how an area looks or works. Reconstruction repairs damaged tissue, rebuilds parts such as the nose, eyelid, lip or ear, and helps restore appearance and function. It is also used to repair skin damaged by radiation and to rebuild areas after surgery for other cancers that start in the skin and soft tissue, including melanoma and sarcoma.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if removing your skin cancer leaves a wound that is large, deep or in a place where the way it heals affects how you see, breathe, eat, speak or move. People whose cancer was found later and needed more extensive surgery benefit the most. Skin cancers include basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma.

How to Prepare

  • Share your health history. Tell your surgeon about every medicine and supplement you take, especially blood thinners, aspirin, fish oil and vitamin E. Do not stop a blood thinner unless the doctor who prescribed it says so.
  • Stop smoking if you can. Smoking slows healing and raises the chance that a flap or graft does not take.
  • Plan your day. A repair on the same day as Mohs surgery can make a long visit. Bring a snack and something to read.
  • Arrange a ride if you will have sedation, or if a dressing near your eye will block your vision.
  • Ask what to expect for the time off work, the dressing and when stitches come out.
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[Resource Headline]

[Optional Sub-Heading]

[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

For most repairs, the area is cleaned and numbed with an injection. The surgeon shapes the wound, moves or places the tissue and closes it with stitches. You may feel pressure but should not feel pain. Larger flap surgery takes place in an operating room, and you may stay in the hospital for a night or more.

After the Procedure

You go home with a pressure dressing. A skin graft may have a padded dressing stitched over it for about a week so it can attach. Keep the dressing dry and in place as instructed.

Recovery

Expect swelling and bruising for one to two weeks, more around the eyes. Keep your head raised when you sleep after a repair on the face. Stitches usually come out in one to two weeks. Avoid heavy lifting and hard exercise until your surgeon says it is safe. A scar keeps fading and flattening for 12 to 18 months.

Call 911 for trouble breathing, chest pain or bleeding that will not stop with 20 minutes of firm pressure. Call your care team the same day for redness, warmth or pus around the wound, a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, a graft or flap that turns dark or black, or swelling that keeps getting worse.

Risks and Complications

Skin cancer reconstruction is generally safe. Possible risks include:

  • Bleeding under the repair.
  • Infection.
  • A graft or flap that does not fully take, which may need more care or another repair.
  • Scarring that is thick or raised, or skin that differs in color.
  • Numbness in the area, which often improves over months.
  • Changes in shape, such as an eyelid or lip that pulls, which may need a later touch-up.

Your surgeon will review the risks that apply to your repair.

Results of Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Most people heal well, and many scars become hard to see. Results depend on the size and place of the wound, your skin and how well you heal. A repair near the eyes, nose or mouth aims to keep those areas working normally as well as looking natural. If a scar is still noticeable once it has matured, options such as scar revision or laser treatment can soften it.

Keep up with your skin checks after treatment. Having one skin cancer raises the chance of another, and skin cancer screening helps find any new spot early.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I need reconstruction after Mohs surgery?

Not always. Many small wounds close with a few stitches. You will know whether you need a flap or graft once the cancer is fully removed and the surgeon can see the final size of the wound.

Is reconstruction done the same day?

Often, yes, right after the cancer is removed. Larger repairs may be scheduled a day or more later or done in an operating room.

Will insurance cover it?

Reconstruction after skin cancer surgery repairs the effects of treating a cancer, and insurance plans often cover it. Check with your plan before your procedure.

Will I have a scar?

Every repair leaves a scar. Surgeons place it along natural lines and creases where they can, and most scars fade a lot over the first year.

How do I care for the wound at home?

Follow your written instructions. Most people keep the dressing on for a day or two, then wash the area with mild soap and water and apply ointment until the stitches come out.

Who Provides It and Where

Skin cancer reconstruction is performed by dermatologic and Mohs surgeons, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, and head and neck surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery Institute. Plastic and reconstructive microsurgeons who repair the effects of treating skin cancer, melanoma, sarcoma and radiation wounds, from simple closures to tissue flaps, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team brings dermatology, surgical oncology and plastic surgery together, so removal and repair are planned as one treatment. Its St. Petersburg location also offers skin cancer surgery and reconstruction by plastic and reconstructive surgeons.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists who remove skin cancers, including with Mohs surgery, and repair the wound.
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[Address Line]
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000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Aesthetic & Reconstructive

Plastic surgeons rebuild larger wounds with skin grafts and tissue flaps after a skin cancer is removed.

Learn More About Aesthetic & Reconstructive
Cancer

Cancer teams plan the removal of a skin cancer and the repair together, so treatment and healing fit one plan.

Learn More About Cancer
Dermatology

Dermatologic and Mohs surgeons close many smaller wounds the same day they remove the cancer.

Learn More About Dermatology
Conditions
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Treatments
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery
Skin Cancer Screening

A skin cancer screening is a head-to-toe look at your skin for spots that could be cancer. It takes a few minutes, needs no...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Screening

References

  1. American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Skin Cancer Reconstruction.
    https://www.plasticsurgery.org/reconstructive-procedures/skin-cancer-reconstruction
  2. American Academy of Dermatology. Mohs Surgery: What to Expect.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/mohs-surgery
  3. MedlinePlus. Skin Graft.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002982.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer (Including Melanoma), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Skin Cancer Screening

A skin cancer screening is a head-to-toe look at your skin for spots that could be cancer. It takes a few minutes, needs no needles unless a spot needs testing, and pairs with checking your own skin each month to find changes early.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find a Screening Location. Read by someone due for a screening: the door is a place that offers it.
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, and it is also one of the easiest to find, because most of it grows where you can see it. Caught early, most skin cancers can be removed with a small procedure in a doctor's office.

Screening for skin cancer happens two ways. You check your own skin once a month, looking for spots that are new or changing. And a doctor or other clinician looks over your skin during a visit, more often if your risk is higher. Living in a sunny place such as Florida means more sun for everyone, which is one reason regular checks are worth building into your routine.

If the thought of a full-body exam makes you uneasy, you are not alone. This page explains who should be checked and how often, what happens during the exam, how to check your own skin and what happens if a spot looks suspicious. Talk with your doctor about the plan that fits your skin and your history.

What Is a Skin Cancer Screening?

A skin cancer screening is an exam of your skin, done when you have no symptoms, to look for basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, melanoma and spots that could turn into cancer. A screening only finds spots that need a closer look. Only a skin biopsy, where a small sample is checked under a microscope, can show whether a spot is cancer.

If you already have a spot that is new, growing, bleeding or not healing, you do not need to wait for a screening. Make an appointment to have it checked.

Kinds of Skin Cancer Screening

  • Skin self-exam. You look over your whole body once a month, using a full-length mirror and a hand mirror, or with a partner's help for your back and scalp.
  • Clinical skin exam. A dermatologist, primary care doctor or other clinician examines your skin from scalp to toes. A dermatologist may use a dermatoscope, a lighted magnifier that shows the pattern and borders of a spot more clearly.
  • Total body photography. For people with many moles or a history of melanoma, photos of the skin may be taken so later exams can compare and spot changes.

Why a Skin Cancer Screening Is Ordered

The goal is to find skin cancer early, when it is small and easiest to treat. Basal and squamous cell carcinomas grow slowly, and the longer they go untreated, the larger the surgery and scar can be. Melanoma can spread, and finding it early makes the biggest difference in how well treatment works.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has found too little evidence to recommend for or against routine skin exams by a clinician for people with no symptoms. That means the decision is a personal one, made with your doctor based on your risk. Many dermatologists advise a yearly full-body check, and more often for people at higher risk.

Who Needs One

Talk with your doctor about regular clinical skin exams if you have:

  • A personal history of skin cancer or precancerous spots.
  • A parent, sibling or child who has had melanoma.
  • Many moles, or moles that look unusual.
  • Fair skin that burns or freckles easily, light eyes, or red or blond hair.
  • A history of blistering sunburns, a lot of time in the sun, or tanning bed use.
  • A weakened immune system, such as after an organ transplant.

Skin cancer can affect any skin tone. In people with darker skin it is often found later, sometimes in places that get little sun, such as the palms, soles and nails.

How to Prepare

  • Skip nail polish on your fingers and toes so the clinician can see your nails.
  • Wear your hair loose, so your scalp is easy to check.
  • Go without makeup if you can, so your face can be examined.
  • Note any spots that are new, changing, itchy or bleeding, and point them out.
  • Bring your history: past skin cancers, biopsies and family history.
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[Resource Headline]

[Optional Sub-Heading]

[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What Happens During the Test

You change into a gown in a private exam room and can keep your underwear on if you prefer. A chaperone may be present. The clinician moves the gown to uncover one area at a time, checking your skin from scalp to toes, including between your toes, behind your ears and the soles of your feet. A full exam usually takes about 10 minutes. Spots that need a closer look may be examined with a dermatoscope or photographed for comparison next time.

If a spot looks suspicious, the clinician may numb it and take a small sample for a biopsy, often during the same visit.

Risks

A skin exam itself is free of risk. A screening can find spots that turn out to be harmless, which can lead to a biopsy and a small scar. A biopsy can bleed a little or become infected, which is uncommon.

Understanding Your Results

Most screenings find nothing that needs treatment. If the clinician finds nothing concerning, you will be told when to come back.

If a spot needs a closer look, you may have a biopsy or be asked to return so the spot can be compared over time. Biopsy results usually come back within one to two weeks. If a biopsy shows skin cancer, your care team will explain the type and stage and the treatment options, which for most early skin cancers is a small procedure such as excisional surgery or Mohs surgery.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I get a skin check?

It depends on your risk. People with a history of skin cancer or many risk factors are often checked every 6 to 12 months. Your doctor can tell you what fits you.

How do I check my own skin?

Once a month, in good light, look over your whole body. Use the ABCDEs for moles: a mole that is Asymmetric, has an uneven Border, more than one Color, a Diameter larger than a pencil eraser, or is Evolving in size, shape or color.

Does a full-body exam hurt?

No. It is a visual check that takes about 10 minutes. A biopsy, if you need one, uses a numbing shot first.

Will insurance cover a skin cancer screening?

Coverage for skin exams varies by plan and by your risk. Check with your plan before you schedule.

Should I see a dermatologist or my primary care doctor?

Either can check your skin. Your primary care doctor can look over your skin at a yearly visit and refer you to a dermatologist if you are at higher risk or a spot needs a closer look.

Who Provides It and Where

Skin cancer screening is done by dermatologists, primary care doctors and other clinicians who examine skin.

  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Dermatology. Dermatologists offering full-body skin checks, dermoscopy and biopsies, with dermatopathology in the practice, at offices across the Tampa Bay area.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer team monitors people at higher risk because of family or personal history, genetics or unusual moles, at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Cancer specialists follow people at higher risk of melanoma and treat any skin cancer a screening finds.

Learn More About Cancer
Dermatology

Dermatologists perform full-body skin checks, examine spots with a dermatoscope and biopsy anything suspicious.

Learn More About Dermatology
Pathology

Pathologists read the biopsy from a suspicious spot under a microscope and confirm whether it is cancer.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

Learn More About Basal Cell Carcinoma
Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common skin cancer. It starts in the flat cells of the skin's outer layer, most...

Learn More About Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Treatments
Excisional Surgery

Excisional surgery cuts out a skin cancer or growth along with a thin rim of healthy skin around it, then closes the wound...

Learn More About Excisional Surgery
Mohs Surgery

Mohs surgery removes skin cancer one thin layer at a time, checking each layer under a microscope while you wait, until no...

Learn More About Mohs Surgery
Melanoma Surgery

Melanoma surgery removes the melanoma along with a border of healthy skin, and sometimes checks the nearest lymph nodes. For...

Learn More About Melanoma Surgery
Skin Cancer Reconstruction

Skin cancer reconstruction repairs the skin and tissue left after a skin cancer is removed, so the area heals well, works as...

Learn More About Skin Cancer Reconstruction

References

  1. U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Skin Cancer: Screening (2023).
    https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/recommendation/skin-cancer-screening
  2. American Academy of Dermatology. How to Perform a Skin Self-Exam.
    https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/skin-cancer/find/check-skin
  3. American Cancer Society. Can Melanoma Skin Cancer Be Found Early?
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/melanoma-skin-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/detection.html
  4. National Cancer Institute. Skin Cancer Screening (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/skin/patient/skin-screening-pdq

Get Screened

Ask your doctor whether this screening is right for you, then find a location that offers it.

Find a Screening Location

Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy

Stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, aims very precise, high doses of radiation at a tumor in one to five sessions instead of several weeks. It treats some early lung and prostate cancers, some tumors of the liver, pancreas and spine, and tumors that have spread, without an incision or a hospital stay.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has suggested SBRT, you may be surprised that a course of radiation can take a week or two rather than two months. SBRT is a form of radiation therapy that gives a much higher dose in each session, so far fewer sessions are needed. It is painless, needs no incision and is given as an outpatient.

That higher dose is safe to give because the treatment is so precise. Imaging guides each session, special devices keep you still and the beams come from many angles and meet at the tumor, so the tissue around it receives much less. The same approach used in the brain is called stereotactic radiosurgery.

SBRT is often an option for people with a small tumor who cannot have surgery or prefer not to, and for a few tumors that have spread to places such as the lungs, liver or spine. This page explains how SBRT works, what it treats, how to get ready, what the visits are like and the side effects to know about.

What Is SBRT and How Does It Work?

SBRT is a type of external beam radiation therapy. Like all radiation, it damages the DNA in cancer cells so they stop dividing and die. What sets it apart is the dose and the precision.

Standard radiation splits the total dose into many small daily treatments over several weeks. SBRT gives a few large doses, usually one to five, each one shaped tightly to the tumor. Many beams enter from different directions and overlap only at the target, so the tumor receives a high dose and the surrounding tissue receives far less. The delivery is accurate to within about 2 millimeters.

That accuracy depends on careful imaging and exact positioning. Before each session, the team takes images, often a cone-beam CT, to line the beam up with the tumor. For tumors that move as you breathe, such as in the lung or liver, the team tracks or limits that motion. Some machines, such as Ethos, can adjust the plan to the day's images at each session.

What SBRT Is Used For

SBRT works best for tumors that are small and clearly defined. It is used for:

  • Early lung cancer and lung nodules found to be cancer, especially for people who cannot have surgery or choose not to.
  • Prostate cancer, in five sessions over about two weeks instead of about eight weeks of daily treatment.
  • Liver cancer and tumors that have spread to the liver.
  • Pancreatic cancer, as part of a wider treatment plan.
  • Tumors in or near the spine, including spinal tumors and cancer that has spread to the bone (bone metastasis), often to ease pain.
  • A small number of tumors that have spread to the lungs, liver, adrenal glands or bone, in selected people.
  • Some benign tumors in the body.

SBRT is often an alternative to surgery, especially when a tumor's location or a person's health makes an operation risky.

Before You Start

The consultation. A radiation oncologist reviews your scans and health and explains whether SBRT suits your tumor and what the goal is. You may also meet a surgeon or medical oncologist so you can weigh every option.

Marker placement, for some tumors. Tiny metal markers, called fiducials, may be placed in or near the tumor so the team can see it on X-ray images during treatment. For prostate cancer, this visit often also places a gel spacer between the prostate and the rectum to protect the rectum (rectal spacers).

Simulation and planning. You have a planning scan, often a CT and an MRI, in the exact position you will be treated in. The team may shape a body mold or use other devices to keep you still. Physicists and dosimetrists then design the plan, which usually takes one to two weeks.

Tell your team about your medicines, especially blood thinners before marker placement, any implanted device, earlier radiation and any chance you could be pregnant.

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What to Expect

Your sessions. SBRT is usually one to five sessions, often given every other day. For prostate cancer, expect about seven visits in total after your consultation: one for markers and the spacer, one for planning and five for treatment. The five treatment sessions take about two weeks.

During a session. You lie still on the treatment table, held in position by your mold. The team takes images to line up the beams, then the machine moves around you. You do not feel the radiation. A session may last 30 minutes to an hour, longer than a standard radiation session, because of the extra imaging and the higher dose.

After a session. You go home the same day. Many people return to normal activities right away, though tiredness is common.

Follow-up. The tumor responds over weeks to months, so your first follow-up scan is usually a few months after treatment. Some tumors shrink, and others stop growing, which also counts as success.

Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher after your markers are placed, a new cough or pain that does not ease, or burning or blood when you pass urine. Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain, trouble breathing, coughing up blood, or new weakness or numbness in your legs.

Side Effects and Risks

Because SBRT treats a small area in few sessions, many people have only mild side effects. They depend on where the tumor is.

  • Tiredness for a few days to weeks.
  • Lung: a cough, chest wall soreness or, less often, inflammation of the lung that causes shortness of breath weeks to months later.
  • Prostate: needing to pass urine more often or urgently, bowel irritation and, over time, changes in erections.
  • Liver and pancreas: nausea or stomach upset.
  • Spine and bone: a short flare of pain after treatment, and, less often, a fracture in the treated bone.
  • Rare serious effects, such as damage to a nearby organ, which the plan is built to avoid.

Your radiation oncologist will explain the risks for your tumor's location.

Benefits: What It Can Do

For small early cancers, especially in the lung and prostate, SBRT can control the tumor with results that compare well with other standard treatments, in a much shorter course. It can treat people who cannot have surgery, and it avoids an incision, anesthesia and a hospital stay. For cancer that has spread to a few places, it can control those spots and ease pain. Your team will tell you what SBRT can do for your situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SBRT surgery?

No. Despite the related name radiosurgery, there is no cutting. SBRT is radiation therapy aimed with great precision.

Why are there so few sessions?

Each session gives a much higher dose than standard radiation. The precision keeps that dose focused on the tumor.

Can I drive myself to treatment?

Most people can, since SBRT needs no sedation. If you have a marker placement with sedation, plan for someone to drive you home that day.

Can SBRT be used with other treatments?

Yes. It may be combined with chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormone therapy or surgery, depending on your cancer.

What if the tumor comes back after SBRT?

Other options remain open, including surgery, other radiation or medicines. Your team will review what fits best.

Who Provides It and Where

SBRT is planned and given by radiation oncologists, physicists, dosimetrists and radiation therapists, working with your surgeons and medical oncologists.

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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Radiation oncologists give SBRT in one to five precise sessions for small tumors of the lung, liver, prostate and spine.

Learn More About Cancer
Pulmonary / Critical Care

Lung specialists find and biopsy lung nodules and refer people who cannot have surgery for SBRT.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Urology

Urologists refer men with prostate cancer for a two-week course of SBRT, often with a rectal spacer placed first.

Learn More About Urology
Conditions
Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

Learn More About Bone Metastasis
Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

Learn More About Brain and Spine Tumors
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Lung Cancer

Lung cancer starts when cells in the lung grow out of control and form a tumor. Found early, it can often be removed or...

Learn More About Lung Cancer
Lung Nodules

A lung nodule is a small round spot in the lung that shows up on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Most are scars from an old...

Learn More About Lung Nodules
Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer starts in the cells of the pancreas, a gland behind the stomach that helps you digest food and control...

Learn More About Pancreatic Cancer
Treatments
Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

Learn More About Radiation Therapy
Rectal Spacers

A rectal spacer is a soft gel placed between the prostate and the rectum before radiation for prostate cancer. It moves the...

Learn More About Rectal Spacers
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Proton Therapy

Proton therapy is a type of radiation therapy that uses protons instead of X-rays. Protons release most of their energy at...

Learn More About Proton Therapy

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Radiation Therapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/radiation-therapy
  2. American Cancer Society. External Beam Radiation Therapy for Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/radiation/external-beam-radiation-therapy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Stereotactic Radiosurgery, SRS.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007577.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (definition).
    https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/stereotactic-body-radiation-therapy

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection

Submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection, or STER, removes a tumor from deep in the wall of the esophagus or stomach using a flexible scope passed through the mouth. There is no cut on the skin, and most people stay in the hospital for a day or two.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

You may have learned that you have a growth under the lining of your esophagus or stomach, perhaps found by chance during a scope test or a scan. Many of these growths are not cancer, and some can become a problem as they grow. Your doctor may have suggested removing it with a procedure called STER, short for submucosal tunneling endoscopic resection.

The wall of the esophagus and stomach is made of layers, like the layers of an onion. The inner lining is called the mucosa. Under it is a layer called the submucosa, and under that is muscle. Some tumors grow in these deeper layers, where a regular scope cannot reach them without cutting through the lining above.

STER solves that by making a short tunnel between the layers. The doctor works inside the tunnel, removes the tumor in one piece and then closes the entrance with small clips. The lining over the tumor stays whole, which helps it heal. Because everything is done through the mouth, STER often allows a shorter hospital stay and a quicker recovery than surgery.

What Is Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection?

STER is a way to remove a tumor from the deeper layers of the digestive tract, most often the esophagus or the upper stomach, using an endoscope. An endoscope is a thin, flexible tube with a light and camera at the tip. It goes in through your mouth, so there are no incisions on your chest or belly.

The procedure is done by an endoscopist, usually a gastroenterologist with advanced training in therapeutic endoscopy. It is closely related to peroral endoscopic myotomy, or POEM, which uses the same tunnel technique to treat a swallowing disorder called achalasia.

The growths STER removes are called submucosal or subepithelial tumors, because they lie beneath the inner lining. The most common kinds are:

  • Leiomyomas, smooth muscle growths that are almost always not cancer. They are the most common kind in the esophagus.
  • Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), which can range from slow-growing to cancerous and are often removed for that reason.
  • Schwannomas and other rare growths of nerve or other tissue.

Many people first learn about the tumor from an upper endoscopy and an endoscopic ultrasound, a scope with a small ultrasound probe that shows which layer the tumor comes from and how large it is.

Why Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection Is Performed

STER is performed to remove a tumor in the deeper layers of the esophagus or stomach so it can be examined under a microscope and, where needed, treated. Reasons include:

  • To find out exactly what the tumor is. A biopsy taken from the surface often cannot reach a deep tumor. Removing it whole gives the pathologist the full tumor to examine.
  • To treat a tumor that may become cancer, such as a GIST, before it grows.
  • To relieve symptoms a growth can cause, such as trouble swallowing, pain or bleeding.
  • To avoid surgery that would open the chest or belly or remove part of the stomach or esophagus.

Who Is a Candidate

STER suits small to medium-sized tumors in the esophagus or the top of the stomach that come from the deeper layers and have not spread. Your team will look at the tumor's size, shape, location and layer on endoscopic ultrasound and often a CT scan. A tumor that is large, in a hard-to-reach spot or likely to have spread may be better treated with surgery, such as esophageal surgery. Your doctor will explain which approach fits your tumor.

How to Prepare

  • Food and drink. You may have only clear liquids the day before. For about six hours before the procedure, you cannot eat or drink anything, including water. Your doctor will tell you exactly when to start, and the procedure may need to be moved if the instructions are not followed.
  • Medicines. Most medicines can be taken as usual until the day of the procedure. Tell your doctor about every medicine and any allergies. Blood thinners, including aspirin, warfarin and clopidogrel, usually need to be stopped for several days before and after. Your doctor will give you the exact days, and may need permission from the doctor who prescribes them.
  • Staying overnight. Plan to stay in the hospital for a day or two, and arrange for someone to take you home.
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What to Expect

During the Procedure

STER is done under general anesthesia, so you are asleep. The endoscopist guides the scope through your mouth to the tumor. A special solution is injected under the lining to lift it away from the deeper layers. The doctor makes a small opening in the lining a short distance from the tumor and tunnels through the submucosa until the tumor is in view. Using a tiny knife on the scope, the doctor cuts the tumor free and brings it out through the mouth. The opening in the lining is then closed with clips.

Occasionally a tumor turns out to be too deep to remove safely with the scope. This can usually be found only during the procedure. If so, you and your doctor will talk about other ways to treat it.

After the Procedure

You wake in a recovery area and are watched until the anesthesia wears off. Your throat may feel irritated, and you may have some pain in your chest or belly, which usually eases with medicine. You do not eat or drink for the rest of that day and night. The next morning you have an X-ray, and if it looks as expected you start clear liquids.

Recovery

Most people go home after one or two days in the hospital. Your diet moves step by step from liquids to soft foods and back to normal, usually over one to two weeks. Your care team will give you a diet plan to follow at home.

Risks and Complications

STER is generally safe, and serious problems are uncommon. Risks include:

  • Air escaping into the chest, belly or the skin of the neck during the procedure, which usually goes away on its own and sometimes needs a small needle or tube to release.
  • A tear or puncture in the wall of the esophagus or stomach, which may need a further procedure or surgery to repair.
  • Bleeding, which can happen up to five days after the procedure.
  • A reaction to anesthesia, rare but more likely in people with severe heart or lung disease.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain or trouble breathing, vomiting blood, black or tarry stools, or fainting.

Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, belly pain that is getting worse, or trouble swallowing that does not improve.

Your doctor will weigh these risks against the benefits of STER and of the other options for your tumor.

Results of Submucosal Tunneling Endoscopic Resection

The endoscopist can usually tell you how the procedure went the same day. The tumor goes to a pathologist, who examines it under a microscope. Results usually take about five to seven days and go to the doctor who referred you, who will decide whether you need a follow-up visit.

  • A tumor that is not cancer, such as a leiomyoma, usually needs no further treatment once it is removed.
  • A GIST is examined for its size and how fast its cells divide, which tells your team how likely it is to come back. Some people need only follow-up scans or scopes; others are referred to an oncologist to discuss medicine.
  • A cancer is staged and treated by a team of specialists. See stomach cancer and esophageal cancer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I have any scars?

No. The scope goes in through your mouth, and the small opening inside is closed with clips, so there are no cuts on your skin.

Does a tumor under the lining mean I have cancer?

Not usually. Many of these growths are not cancer. Removing the tumor whole is often the clearest way to know what it is.

How long will I be in the hospital?

Most people stay one or two days, compared with several days or more after surgery that opens the chest or belly.

When can I eat normally again?

You start clear liquids the morning after the procedure, then slowly add soft foods. Most people are back to a normal diet within one to two weeks.

What if the tumor cannot be removed with the scope?

Sometimes a tumor is deeper than the scans showed. Your doctor will stop, explain what they found and talk with you about surgery or other options.

Who Provides It and Where

STER is performed by gastroenterologists with advanced endoscopy training, working with anesthesiologists, pathologists and, when a tumor is cancer, oncologists and surgeons.

  • Orlando Health Digestive Health Institute offers STER, along with POEM, to qualifying patients.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Specialists in cancers of the esophagus and stomach, for anyone whose tumor proves to be cancer or a GIST that needs more care.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Medical oncologists, surgeons and nurse navigators for cancers of the digestive tract.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
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Comprehensive Care

Related Service Lines
Cancer

Oncologists see patients whose removed tumor proves to be a GIST or cancer that needs follow-up or medicine.

Learn More About Cancer
Digestive Health

Advanced endoscopists remove tumors from deep in the esophagus or stomach wall through a tunnel made with the scope.

Learn More About Digestive Health
Pathology

Pathologists examine the whole removed tumor to tell a harmless leiomyoma from a GIST or a cancer.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Stomach Cancer

Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, starts in the lining of the stomach. Its early signs, like indigestion or...

Learn More About Stomach Cancer
Esophageal Cancer

Esophageal cancer starts in the lining of the esophagus, the tube that takes food from your throat to your stomach. Its most...

Learn More About Esophageal Cancer
Treatments
Abdominoperineal Resection

An abdominoperineal resection is surgery that removes the lower rectum and the anus to treat a cancer very low in the rectum...

Learn More About Abdominoperineal Resection
Anoscopy

An anoscopy is a quick office exam that uses a small, lighted tube to look inside the anus and lower rectum. It takes a few...

Learn More About Anoscopy
Barium Enema

A barium enema is an X-ray exam of the colon and rectum. A chalky liquid called barium is placed through the rectum to coat...

Learn More About Barium Enema
Colonoscopy

A colonoscopy uses a thin, flexible tube with a camera to look at the whole inside of the colon and rectum. You are usually...

Learn More About Colonoscopy
Colorectal Cancer Screening

Colorectal cancer screening checks for cancer and the polyps that can turn into it before you have any symptoms. Adults at...

Learn More About Colorectal Cancer Screening
Colorectal Surgery

Colorectal surgery is an operation on the colon, rectum or anus. It removes cancer, polyps or diseased bowel and joins the...

Learn More About Colorectal Surgery

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/soft-tissue-sarcoma/patient/gist-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor (GIST).
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/gastrointestinal-stromal-tumor.html
  3. MedlinePlus. EGD (Esophagogastroduodenoscopy).
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003888.htm

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only when your cancer has that target, so a test of your tumor comes first. Many targeted medicines are pills taken at home, and others are given by infusion.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

Your oncologist may have mentioned targeted therapy after looking at the results of a test on your tumor, or you may have read that a "precision" medicine could be an option for your cancer. Either way, it is natural to wonder what makes this medicine different from chemotherapy and whether it fits your situation.

Targeted therapy starts from a simple idea. Many cancers grow because of a change in a particular gene or protein inside the cancer cells. A targeted medicine is designed to find that change and block it, which can slow the cancer, stop it from growing or shrink it. Because the medicine aims at something the cancer cells have, it tends to affect healthy cells less than traditional chemotherapy does, although it still has side effects of its own.

Not every cancer has a target that a medicine can reach, so testing your tumor is the first step. This page explains how targeted therapy works, the main kinds, which cancers it treats, how to get ready, what to expect, the side effects and what it can do.

What Is Targeted Therapy and How Does It Work?

Every cell follows instructions written in its genes. In cancer cells, some of those instructions have changed, and the changes can tell the cell to keep dividing, to ignore signals to stop, or to build new blood vessels that feed a tumor. These changes are called mutations or alterations, and the proteins they produce are the targets.

A targeted medicine works on one of those targets. Depending on the medicine, it may:

  • Switch off a growth signal that a changed protein keeps sending.
  • Mark the cancer cells so your immune system can find and destroy them.
  • Cut off a tumor's blood supply by blocking the signals that grow new blood vessels.
  • Carry a cancer drug straight to the cancer cell, attached to an antibody that seeks it out.
  • Block the cell's ability to repair its own damage, so the cancer cell dies.

To find a target, your care team tests a sample of your tumor, and sometimes your blood, with molecular profiling. One common method, next-generation sequencing, reads many genes at once.

Kinds of Targeted Therapy

  • Small-molecule medicines. Pills or capsules taken by mouth, often once or twice a day at home. They enter the cell and block the signal from inside. Examples include osimertinib (Tagrisso) for lung cancer with an EGFR change and olaparib (Lynparza), a PARP inhibitor used for some breast, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate cancers.
  • Monoclonal antibodies. Lab-made proteins, usually given by infusion into a vein or as a shot under the skin. Trastuzumab (Herceptin) targets the HER2 protein in some breast and stomach cancers, and bevacizumab (Avastin) blocks the growth of new blood vessels.
  • Antibody-drug conjugates. An antibody linked to a powerful cancer drug, such as trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu), which delivers the drug to cells with HER2.

What Targeted Therapy Is Used For

Targeted therapy is used when testing shows a target that a medicine can reach. It may be given alone, with chemotherapy, immunotherapy or hormone therapy, or after surgery to lower the chance of the cancer coming back. For many advanced cancers, the goal is to control the cancer and help you feel well for as long as possible.

Cancers it is used for include:

Before You Start

Before you begin, your care team checks several things:

  • Your tumor test results. The medicine is chosen for the target your test found. If the first sample was too small, you may need another biopsy.
  • Your heart, liver and kidneys. Some medicines can affect these organs, so you may have blood tests and, for HER2 medicines, a heart scan such as an echocardiogram or a MUGA scan.
  • Every medicine and supplement you take. Many targeted pills interact with other drugs, herbal products such as St. John's wort, and grapefruit. Bring a full list.
  • Pregnancy and fertility. Most targeted medicines can harm an unborn baby, so ask about birth control and, if you plan to have children, fertility options before you start.
  • Vaccines and surgery. Tell the team about any planned surgery or dental work, since some medicines slow wound healing.
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What to Expect

Starting. Your oncologist or an oncology pharmacist explains the dose, the schedule and the side effects to watch for. Pills often come from a specialty pharmacy, and you take them at home on a set schedule. Infusions are given at an infusion center, often every one to three weeks, and some medicines are now given as a shot under the skin, which takes less time than an infusion.

The schedule. Many people take targeted therapy for as long as it keeps the cancer under control and the side effects are manageable. After surgery, a course may last a set time, such as a year.

How long until it works. Some people notice symptoms ease within weeks. Your team usually checks with scans every two to three months and with blood tests in between.

Follow-up. Regular visits let your team adjust the dose, treat side effects early and watch for signs that the cancer is finding a way around the medicine.

Side Effects and Risks

Side effects depend on the medicine and its target. Common ones include:

  • Skin changes, such as an acne-like rash, dry or itchy skin, or sore, cracked skin on the hands and feet.
  • Diarrhea, nausea or mouth sores.
  • Tiredness.
  • High blood pressure and, with some medicines, slower wound healing or a higher risk of bleeding.
  • Changes in liver tests or blood counts, found on routine blood work.
  • Heart effects, with some HER2 medicines, which is why your heart is checked.
  • Lung inflammation, which is uncommon and can be serious.

Most side effects can be eased with medicine, skin care or a change in dose. Tell your team about them early, since many are easier to treat when they are mild.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain or trouble breathing, bleeding that will not stop, or a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher while you are also receiving chemotherapy or when your team has told you your blood counts are low. Call your care team the same day for diarrhea that does not ease with the medicine you were given, a rash that spreads or blisters, a new cough, or any other fever.

Benefits: What It Can Do

When a cancer has a target, targeted therapy can shrink tumors, slow or stop their growth and ease symptoms, often while you keep up much of your daily life. For some cancers, such as chronic myeloid leukemia and HER2-positive breast cancer, targeted medicines have changed what a diagnosis means. After surgery, some lower the chance of the cancer coming back.

Cancer cells can change over time and stop responding. When that happens, your team may test again and move to another medicine. Results vary from person to person, and your team will tell you what to expect for your cancer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is targeted therapy the same as chemotherapy?

They are different classes of medicine. Chemotherapy attacks cells that divide quickly, healthy or not. Targeted therapy acts on a specific change in the cancer cells. Some plans use both.

What if my tumor has no target?

Then a targeted medicine is unlikely to help, and your team will recommend other treatments, such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy or radiation. New targets are found often, so testing may be repeated later.

Can I take my treatment at home?

Many targeted medicines are pills you take at home. Others are infusions or shots given at a clinic. Either way, you stay in close touch with your team.

Can I take vitamins, supplements or herbal products?

Check with your care team or pharmacist first. Some supplements and foods, such as grapefruit, change how much medicine reaches your blood.

Will my family need testing?

Usually not, because most tumor changes happen only in the cancer. If a test suggests an inherited change, such as BRCA, your team may suggest genetic counseling for you and your relatives.

Who Provides It and Where

Medical oncologists prescribe and oversee targeted therapy, working with pathologists who test the tumor, oncology pharmacists and infusion nurses.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its specialty centers use tumor genetic testing to choose targeted treatments for breast, lung, melanoma, brain, head and neck, prostate and other cancers, and complex cases may be reviewed by a tumor board of cancer specialists. Treatment is given at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.
  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Targeted therapy for cancers of the colon and rectum, liver, bile ducts, pancreas and stomach.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Hematology and Medical Oncology. Medical oncologists who use targeted medicines, such as monoclonal antibodies and medicines that block blood vessel growth, for colon and other cancers in the Tampa Bay area.
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Cancer

Medical oncologists choose a targeted medicine for the gene or protein change found in a tumor and track how it works.

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Dermatology

Dermatologists treat the rashes and skin changes some targeted medicines cause, so treatment can continue.

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Pathology

Pathologists test tumor tissue for the gene and protein changes that decide whether a targeted medicine can help.

Learn More About Pathology
Conditions
Appendiceal Cancers

Appendiceal cancers are rare cancers that start in the appendix, the small pouch attached to the large intestine. Many are...

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Basal Cell Carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer. It grows slowly in sun-exposed skin, such as the face, ears and scalp,...

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Bladder Cancer

Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

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Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

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Brain and Spine Tumors

Brain and spine tumors are growths in or around the brain, the spinal cord or the bones of the spine. Some are cancer and...

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Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

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Treatments
Molecular Profiling

Molecular profiling tests a sample of your cancer for changes in its genes and proteins. The results can show which...

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

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Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

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Biopsy

A biopsy takes a small sample of tissue or cells so a doctor can study it under a microscope. It is the test that shows for...

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MUGA Scan

A MUGA scan measures how well your heart pumps blood. A small amount of tracer is added to your blood, and a camera takes...

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Genetic Counseling

Genetic counseling helps you find out whether cancer in your family may be inherited, whether a genetic test makes sense for...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Targeted Therapy to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/targeted-therapies
  2. American Cancer Society. Targeted Drug Therapy.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/targeted-therapy.html
  3. MedlinePlus. Targeted Therapies for Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000904.htm
  4. National Cancer Institute. Biomarker Testing for Cancer Treatment.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/biomarker-testing-cancer-treatment

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Trachelectomy

A trachelectomy removes the cervix while keeping the uterus, so a person treated for small, early cervical cancer may still be able to have a baby. Gynecologic oncologists perform it, often through small incisions.

Medically Reviewed Content
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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has mentioned a trachelectomy, you have probably just learned that you have early cervical cancer, and you may be thinking about whether you can still have children. That is the question this operation exists to answer. For the right person, it treats the cancer and keeps the chance of a future pregnancy.

The standard surgery for early cervical cancer is a hysterectomy, which removes the uterus and cervix and ends the ability to become pregnant. A trachelectomy removes the cervix, the tissue around it and the top of the vagina, and leaves the body of the uterus in place. The surgeon then reconnects the uterus to the vagina and places a stitch to help hold a future pregnancy.

It is an option only for some cancers: small ones, found early, that have not spread. Your gynecologic oncologist will look closely at your tumor, your scans and your lymph nodes to decide whether it is safe for you.

This page explains the kinds of trachelectomy, who is a candidate, how to prepare, what recovery is like and what pregnancy afterward involves.

What Is a Trachelectomy?

A trachelectomy is surgery to remove the cervix, the narrow lower end of the uterus that opens into the vagina. It is a fertility-sparing treatment for cervical cancer: it removes the cancer while keeping the uterus, so a pregnancy remains possible.

In most cases the surgeon also removes lymph nodes from the pelvis and checks them for cancer, often at the start of the same operation. This is called a pelvic lymph node dissection. Some surgeons first inject a dye to find the sentinel nodes, the first nodes the cancer would reach. If cancer is found in the nodes, a trachelectomy is usually no longer the safest choice, and your surgeon will have talked with you beforehand about what happens then. Learn more about lymph node removal.

A trachelectomy is done under general anesthesia, so you are asleep and feel nothing.

Kinds of Trachelectomy

  • Radical trachelectomy. The most common kind. The surgeon removes the cervix, the tissue on either side of it (the parametrium) and the upper part of the vagina, then joins the uterus to the vagina.
  • Simple trachelectomy. Removes the cervix with less of the surrounding tissue. It may be an option for very small, low-risk tumors.

A trachelectomy can be performed in several ways:

  • Robotic or laparoscopic. The surgeon works through a few small incisions in the belly. See robotic surgery.
  • Open (abdominal). The surgeon works through one larger incision in the lower belly.
  • Vaginal. The cervix is removed through the vagina, usually with the lymph nodes removed through small incisions in the belly.

The approach depends on the size and position of the tumor and on your health. Your surgeon will explain why a particular approach is recommended for you.

Why a Trachelectomy Is Performed

A trachelectomy treats early cervical cancer in people who want to keep the ability to become pregnant. A related operation, a parametrectomy, removes the tissue beside where the cervix was when cervical cancer is found only after a simple hysterectomy.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if:

  • You have early-stage cervical cancer, usually stage IA2 or IB1, and in some cases IA1 with cancer in the small vessels
  • The tumor is small, generally 2 centimeters or less, and limited to the cervix
  • Scans show no spread to the lymph nodes or beyond
  • The cancer is one of the common types, squamous cell carcinoma or adenocarcinoma
  • You want to keep the ability to become pregnant

For the smallest cancers, a cone biopsy, which removes a cone-shaped piece of the cervix, may be all that is needed. Larger tumors are usually treated with hysterectomy or with chemotherapy and radiation. Your care team uses an exam, an MRI and the pathology report to decide.

How to Prepare

  • Talk about fertility first. Ask how a pregnancy would be managed afterward. Some people also meet with a fertility specialist before surgery.
  • Imaging and tests. You will usually have an MRI of the pelvis and may have a PET-CT scan. See MRI.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Food and drink. You will be told not to eat or drink for a set number of hours before surgery.
  • Help at home. Arrange a ride home and someone to help for the first several days.

Your surgical team will give you written instructions for your situation.

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What to Expect

During the Procedure

You are asleep throughout. The surgeon usually checks the lymph nodes first. If they are clear, the surgeon removes the cervix and surrounding tissue, places a permanent stitch called a cerclage around the lower uterus, and joins the uterus to the top of the vagina. A small tube called a catheter drains your bladder.

After the Procedure

Most people stay in the hospital for one to a few days. You may go home with the catheter for several days while your bladder recovers. Some cramping and light vaginal bleeding or discharge are expected.

Recovery

Recovery from a robotic trachelectomy generally takes about two weeks, and about four to six weeks after open surgery. Avoid heavy lifting, sex and tampons until your surgeon clears you, often around six weeks. Your surgeon will tell you how long to wait before trying to become pregnant, often six months to a year.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, heavy vaginal bleeding, pain or swelling in one leg, being unable to pass urine after the catheter is out, or redness, warmth or drainage at an incision.

Risks and Complications

Risks include bleeding, infection, blood clots and injury to the bladder, ureters or bowel. Removing lymph nodes can lead to swelling in the legs or genital area, called lymphedema. Some people have changes in how the bladder empties for a time.

The new opening of the uterus can narrow, which can cause painful or irregular periods and may need a short procedure to widen it. The vagina may be slightly shorter, and some people notice changes during sex.

Sometimes the final lab report shows the cancer was larger or had spread further than expected. In that case, more treatment such as radiation, chemotherapy or a hysterectomy may be recommended.

Results of Trachelectomy

For carefully chosen people with small tumors, the chance of the cancer coming back after a radical trachelectomy is similar to that after a radical hysterectomy. You will have regular follow-up exams, often every three to six months for the first two years, with Pap tests and sometimes imaging.

Many people who try to become pregnant afterward are able to. Pregnancy after a trachelectomy is considered high risk, with a higher chance of miscarriage in the second trimester and of early birth. It is followed closely by a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, and the baby is delivered by cesarean birth. Some people need help from a fertility specialist to conceive.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will I still have periods?

Yes. The uterus stays in place, so periods continue. They may be lighter or different at first.

Can I still get pregnant?

Many people can. Pregnancy is possible because the uterus stays, and your care team will plan close monitoring and a cesarean birth.

Is a trachelectomy as effective as a hysterectomy?

For small, early tumors in carefully chosen patients, outcomes are similar. Your surgeon will explain whether your cancer fits.

What if cancer is found in my lymph nodes during surgery?

Your surgeon will usually stop the trachelectomy, and you will likely be treated with chemotherapy and radiation. This plan is discussed with you before surgery.

Will I need more treatment afterward?

Most people need only follow-up exams. If the lab report finds features that raise the risk of return, more treatment may be recommended.

Who Provides It and Where

Trachelectomy is performed by gynecologic oncologists, surgeons with training in obstetrics and gynecology and advanced training in gynecologic cancers.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its Gynecologic Cancer Center offers fertility-sparing surgery for certain gynecologic cancers, including robotic radical trachelectomy, with radiation oncologists, oncology nurses and a nurse navigator who focuses on gynecologic cancers. Gynecologic cancer surgery is performed at Orlando Health Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women & Babies. For questions about robotic surgery, call (321) 841-9365.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health Hematology and Medical Oncology. Provides chemotherapy in the Tampa Bay area when more treatment is needed after surgery.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
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Cancer

Gynecologic oncologists remove the cervix and nearby lymph nodes to treat small, early cervical cancer.

Learn More About Cancer
Pathology

Pathologists check the lymph nodes and the removed cervix for clear edges and any spread of the cancer.

Learn More About Pathology
Women's

Maternal-fetal medicine specialists follow a pregnancy after trachelectomy and plan a cesarean birth.

Learn More About Women's
Conditions
Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer starts in the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all cases are caused...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer
Gynecologic Cancers

Gynecologic cancers start in a woman's reproductive organs: the cervix, ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina or vulva....

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Treatments
Lymph Node Removal

Lymph node removal takes out one or more of the small glands that filter fluid near a cancer, so a pathologist can see...

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MRI

An MRI uses a strong magnet and radio waves to make detailed pictures of the inside of your body, with no radiation. It...

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Cervical Cancer Screening

Cervical cancer screening uses a Pap test, an HPV test or both to find changes in the cervix years before they could become...

Learn More About Cervical Cancer Screening

References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Cervical Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/cervical/patient/cervical-treatment-pdq
  2. American Cancer Society. Surgery for Cervical Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/cervical-cancer/treating/surgery.html
  3. National Comprehensive Cancer Network. NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Cervical Cancer.
    https://www.nccn.org/patients/guidelines/content/PDF/cervical-patient.pdf
  4. MedlinePlus. Cervical Cancer.
    https://medlineplus.gov/cervicalcancer.html

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It needs no large incision, many people go home the same day, and it can treat small tumors in the liver, kidney, lung, bone and other organs when surgery is not the best choice.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended tumor ablation, you may have a small tumor in your liver, kidney, lung or bone, or a growth in your thyroid that is causing trouble. You may have been told that surgery would be hard on your body, or that the tumor is in a place where it is safer to destroy it than to cut it out. Ablation gives your team a way to treat it through a needle, often with a short recovery.

Ablation is a local treatment. It works on the tumor it is aimed at and on a small rim of tissue around it, and it leaves the rest of the organ working. Your doctor uses CT, ultrasound or MRI pictures to guide a thin probe into the tumor, then sends energy through the probe to destroy the tumor cells. The body clears the dead tissue over the following months.

This page explains the kinds of ablation, who is a candidate, how to prepare, what recovery is like and the risks to go over with your doctor.

What Is Tumor Ablation?

Tumor ablation is a procedure that destroys a tumor in place instead of removing it. A doctor places one or more thin needles, called probes, through the skin and into the tumor, using imaging to guide each one. The probe then heats or freezes the tumor until the cells die.

Ablation is most often done by an interventional radiologist, a doctor who treats disease through needles and thin tubes guided by imaging. Surgeons sometimes ablate a tumor during an operation, and neurosurgeons use a laser form of ablation in the brain. Ablation works best on small tumors, usually about 3 centimeters across or smaller, and on a limited number of them.

Kinds of Tumor Ablation

  • Radiofrequency ablation. An electrical current passed through the probe heats the tumor. It is used in the liver, kidney, lung, bone and thyroid.
  • Microwave ablation. Microwaves from the probe heat the tumor. It heats faster and can treat a slightly larger area, and it is often used in the liver.
  • Cryoablation. Very cold gas through the probe freezes the tumor, and the freezing is repeated to destroy it. It is used in the kidney, prostate, bone and other organs.
  • Laser ablation. A thin laser fiber heats the tumor. In the brain, this is called laser interstitial thermal therapy, and the neurosurgeon places the fiber through a small opening in the skull using MRI.
  • Other energy sources. Some prostate cancers are treated with steam delivered through a thin device. Histotripsy uses focused sound waves from outside the body and needs no needle at all.

Why Tumor Ablation Is Performed

Ablation is used when a tumor is small enough to destroy completely, or when shrinking or destroying it would relieve symptoms. It is often chosen for people who cannot have surgery or who would rather avoid it. Common uses include:

  • Liver tumors, both small cancers that start in the liver and tumors that spread there from the colon and other organs. See liver cancer and colon cancer.
  • Small kidney tumors, especially in older adults or people with other health problems.
  • Small lung tumors in people who cannot have lung surgery. See lung cancer.
  • Tumors in the bones of the spine, where ablation can ease pain, often paired with a procedure that repairs a weakened bone. See bone metastasis.
  • Prostate cancer in selected people. See prostate cancer.
  • Brain tumors deep in the brain, with laser ablation. See brain tumors.
  • Benign thyroid nodules that cause trouble swallowing or breathing, a visible lump or an overactive thyroid. See thyroid nodules.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if your tumor is small, can be reached safely with a needle and is far enough from large blood vessels and organs that could be harmed. Your team reviews your scans, your overall health and your other treatment choices. Ablation is sometimes combined with surgery, tumor embolization or radiation therapy, and the plan is made with you.

How to Prepare

  • Scans and blood tests. A recent CT or MRI maps the tumor, and blood tests check your kidney function and how well your blood clots.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners, diabetes medicines and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Food and drink. You will usually be asked not to eat for several hours before, because you will have sedation or anesthesia.
  • A ride home. Arrange for someone to drive you home and stay with you the first night.

Your team will give you instructions for your procedure.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

[Resource Headline]

[Optional Sub-Heading]

[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

Depending on the organ, you have local numbing medicine, sedation or general anesthesia. Using CT, ultrasound or MRI, the doctor guides the probe through a small nick in the skin and into the tumor, then turns on the energy for several minutes at a time, sometimes in more than one spot. Thyroid and spine ablations often take under an hour; liver and kidney ablations can take one to three hours.

After the Procedure

You rest in a recovery area while nurses watch your vital signs. Many people go home the same day, and some stay one night, especially after a liver or lung ablation. A small bandage covers the needle site.

Recovery

Most people return to light activity within a few days. Some feel tired and achy for several days while the body clears the treated tissue. A follow-up scan, often about a month later, shows whether the whole tumor was destroyed.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, pain that keeps getting worse, redness, swelling or drainage at the needle site, or nausea or vomiting that keeps you from drinking.

Risks and Complications

Serious problems after ablation are uncommon. Your doctor will go over how these apply to you:

  • Pain at the needle site or in the treated organ for a few days.
  • Bleeding where the probe passed.
  • Infection, including an abscess in the treated area.
  • Injury to nearby tissue, such as the bowel, the bile ducts, a nerve or the skin.
  • A collapsed lung after ablation in or near the lung, which may need a small tube to reinflate it.
  • Tumor left behind, which can be treated with a second ablation or another treatment.

Results of Tumor Ablation

For small tumors, ablation can destroy the whole tumor, and for some small liver and kidney cancers it offers results close to surgery. For bone tumors, many people have less pain within days. Because a new tumor can grow elsewhere in the organ, you will have regular scans afterward, and ablation can usually be repeated if needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ablation surgery?

No large incision is made. The doctor works through one or more needle punctures, guided by imaging, which is why most people recover in days.

Does ablation hurt?

You are numbed, sedated or asleep during it. Afterward, soreness at the site is common for a few days and is treated with pain medicine.

How will I know the tumor is gone?

A follow-up CT or MRI shows whether the treated area still has living tumor. You will have scans at set times after that.

Can ablation be repeated?

Yes. If part of the tumor remains or a new tumor appears, ablation can often be done again.

Will I need other treatment?

Some people need nothing more. Others have ablation alongside surgery, chemotherapy, embolization or radiation, depending on the type and stage of the tumor.

Who Provides It and Where

Tumor ablation is performed by interventional radiologists, surgeons and neurosurgeons, who work with medical and radiation oncologists to plan it. Care is offered at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its liver team uses heat-based ablation for liver cancer, and radiofrequency, microwave and freezing ablation for cancer that has spread to the liver from the colon and rectum.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its specialty centers offer radiofrequency ablation for benign thyroid nodules and freezing ablation of the prostate, with nurse navigators to coordinate your care.
  • Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute. Its neurosurgeons use laser ablation for deep brain tumors, and its spine specialists ablate painful tumors in the bones of the spine.
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Oncologists choose ablation for small liver, kidney, lung or bone tumors when it can destroy them without open surgery.

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Neurosurgeons use MRI-guided laser ablation for deep brain tumors, and spine specialists ablate painful spine tumors.

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Radiology

Interventional radiologists guide the needle probe into the tumor with CT, ultrasound or MRI and check results on scans.

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Conditions
Adrenal Cancer

Adrenal cancer starts in one of the two small glands above the kidneys that make hormones for blood pressure, blood sugar...

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Bone Metastasis

Bone metastasis means cancer that started somewhere else, such as the breast, prostate or lung, has spread to a bone. It can...

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Cancer Pain

Cancer pain is pain caused by a tumor or by cancer treatment. It can be an ache, a sharp or burning pain, or tingling and...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

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Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

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Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

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Treatments
Histotripsy

Histotripsy uses focused pulses of sound, sent from outside your body, to break apart a tumor in the liver. There are no...

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Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

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Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor...

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Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy uses carefully aimed beams of energy, or a radiation source placed in the body, to damage cancer cells so...

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Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for...

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Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

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References

  1. National Cancer Institute. Hyperthermia to Treat Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/hyperthermia
  2. American Cancer Society. Tumor Ablation for Liver Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/liver-cancer/treating/tumor-ablation.html
  3. RadiologyInfo.org. Radiofrequency Ablation of Liver Tumors.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/rfa-liver
  4. RadiologyInfo.org. Cryotherapy.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/cryo
  5. American Cancer Society. Ablation for Kidney Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/kidney-cancer/treating/ablation.html

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Tumor Embolization

Tumor embolization blocks the blood vessels that feed a tumor, so it shrinks or stops growing. A doctor reaches the tumor through a thin tube placed in an artery at the groin or wrist. It is most often used for liver tumors, and it can also make some tumors safer to remove with surgery.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: Find an Oncologist. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor has recommended tumor embolization, you may have a tumor in your liver that surgery cannot safely remove, or a tumor elsewhere that has a rich blood supply. You may also be waiting for another treatment, such as a liver transplant or an operation, and your team wants to control the tumor in the meantime. Embolization lets your doctor treat the tumor from inside the blood vessels, with no large incision.

Every tumor needs blood to grow. Embolization cuts off that supply by placing tiny particles, coils or other material in the artery that feeds the tumor. In the liver this works especially well, because liver tumors draw most of their blood from one artery, while the healthy liver draws most of its blood from a different vessel. So the tumor loses its supply and the rest of the liver keeps working.

This page explains the kinds of embolization, who is a candidate, how to prepare, what recovery is like and the risks to go over with your doctor.

What Is Tumor Embolization?

Tumor embolization is a procedure that blocks the arteries feeding a tumor. A doctor makes a tiny opening in an artery in your groin or wrist and threads a thin, flexible tube called a catheter through the blood vessels to the tumor, watching its path on X-ray pictures. Once the catheter reaches the artery that feeds the tumor, the doctor releases material that blocks it. Some forms also deliver cancer medicine or radiation straight into the tumor.

Embolization is usually done by an interventional radiologist, a doctor who treats disease through needles and catheters guided by imaging. It is a local treatment, aimed at the tumor and the organ it is in.

Kinds of Tumor Embolization

  • Bland embolization. The doctor blocks the artery with tiny particles alone, cutting off the tumor's blood and oxygen.
  • Chemoembolization. The doctor delivers a concentrated dose of chemotherapy into the tumor's artery, along with material that blocks it. The medicine stays in the tumor longer, and less of it reaches the rest of the body. In one form, the medicine is loaded onto tiny beads that release it slowly.
  • Radioembolization. Tiny beads that give off radiation are sent into the tumor's artery and lodge in the tumor. See radioembolization.
  • Embolization before surgery. For some tumors with a rich blood supply, such as certain brain, kidney and bone tumors, the doctor blocks the arteries a day or a few days before the operation, so the surgeon can remove the tumor with less bleeding.

Why Tumor Embolization Is Performed

Embolization is used to shrink a tumor, slow its growth, relieve symptoms or prepare for surgery. Common uses include:

  • Liver cancer that cannot be removed with surgery, such as hepatocellular carcinoma in more than one spot, or in a liver that cannot spare a section. See liver cancer.
  • Liver cancer in people waiting for a transplant, to keep the tumor within the limits for a liver transplant.
  • Cancer that has spread to the liver, from the colon, from neuroendocrine tumors and from other cancers. See colon cancer.
  • Tumors with a rich blood supply before surgery, including some brain tumors, kidney tumors and tumors in the bones.
  • Bleeding or pain from a tumor, where blocking its blood supply can stop the bleeding or ease symptoms.

Who Is a Candidate

You may be a candidate if your tumor gets its blood from arteries the catheter can reach and if your liver and kidneys work well enough. People whose liver is badly damaged, or whose main liver vein is blocked, may not be able to have it safely. Your team reviews your scans, blood tests and overall health. Embolization is sometimes combined with tumor ablation, hepatectomy or medicines that work throughout the body, and the plan is made with you.

How to Prepare

  • Scans and blood tests. A recent CT or MRI maps the tumor and its arteries, and blood tests check your liver, your kidneys and how well your blood clots.
  • Contrast dye. Tell your team if you have ever reacted to X-ray dye or iodine, or if you have kidney disease.
  • Medicines. Give your team a full list, including blood thinners, diabetes medicines and supplements, and ask which to stop and when.
  • Food and drink. You will be asked not to eat for several hours before, because you will have sedation.
  • A ride home and help at home. Plan for a possible overnight stay and for someone to drive you home and stay with you at first.

Your team will give you instructions for your procedure.

Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

[Resource Headline]

[Optional Sub-Heading]

[Brief description of the resource]

[Resource Download/Access][Optional Secondary CTA]

What to Expect

During the Procedure

You have sedation to relax you, and numbing medicine where the catheter goes in. The doctor guides the catheter to the tumor's artery, injects X-ray dye to map the vessels, then releases the particles, medicine or beads. You may feel warmth or pressure, and little else. The procedure usually takes one to two hours.

After the Procedure

If the catheter went in at the groin, you lie flat for a few hours so the artery seals; a wrist approach lets you get up sooner. Nurses watch your vital signs and the puncture site. Many people go home the same day after bland embolization, and many stay one night after chemoembolization so the team can control pain and nausea.

Recovery

Many people have belly pain, nausea and tiredness for a few days to a week as the tumor dies, and your team gives you medicine for each. Most return to light activity within a week. A follow-up scan, often four to six weeks later, shows how the tumor responded.

Call 911 for chest pain or trouble breathing, bleeding from the puncture site that will not stop with firm pressure, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, belly pain that keeps getting worse, swelling or a growing lump at the puncture site, yellowing of the skin or eyes, or vomiting that keeps you from drinking.

Risks and Complications

Your doctor will go over how these apply to you:

  • Post-embolization syndrome, the pain, nausea and tiredness that follow, which pass in days.
  • Bruising or bleeding where the catheter entered.
  • Damage to the artery the catheter passed through.
  • A reaction to the X-ray dye, or strain on the kidneys from it.
  • Infection or an abscess in the treated organ.
  • Liver damage, more likely when the liver is already weak.
  • Blocking the wrong vessel, where material reaches the gallbladder, stomach or bowel and causes inflammation or an ulcer.

Results of Tumor Embolization

For liver cancer that cannot be removed, embolization can shrink tumors, slow their growth and help people live longer and feel better. For some people, it shrinks a tumor enough to make surgery or a transplant possible. Before an operation, it can lower blood loss. Embolization can usually be repeated if a tumor grows again, and you will have regular scans and blood tests afterward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is embolization surgery?

No incision is made beyond a tiny opening in an artery for the catheter. Most people recover in days.

Will I lose my hair from chemoembolization?

Hair loss is uncommon, because most of the medicine stays in the liver instead of traveling through the body.

Will the healthy part of my liver be harmed?

Your healthy liver gets most of its blood from a different vessel, so it keeps working. Your team checks your liver function before and after.

How many treatments will I need?

Some people need one. Others have two or more, weeks or months apart, depending on how many tumors there are and how they respond.

Can embolization cure liver cancer?

For most people it controls the cancer instead of curing it. For some, it keeps a tumor small until a transplant or surgery that can cure it.

Who Provides It and Where

Tumor embolization is performed by interventional radiologists, working with liver surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists and neurosurgeons to plan it. Care is offered at Orlando Health locations across Central Florida.

  • Gastrointestinal Cancer Center. Its liver team uses embolization and chemoembolization for liver cancer and for cancer that has spread to the liver, alongside surgery, ablation and radioembolization.
  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Nurse navigators who coordinate your scans, procedures and follow-up visits.
  • Orlando Health Neuroscience Institute. Its neurosurgery team uses embolization before surgery for brain tumors with a rich blood supply.
Type a city or zip code
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Type a doctor's first or last name
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View Doctors with Online Scheduling
[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 3], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
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Liver cancer teams use embolization to shrink tumors surgery cannot remove or to hold them until a transplant.

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Digestive Health

Liver specialists check liver function before and after embolization and help manage the liver disease behind the tumor.

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Radiology

Interventional radiologists thread the catheter to the tumor's artery on X-ray and release the blocking material.

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Conditions
Liver Cancer

Liver cancer is cancer in the liver, either starting there or spreading there from another organ. It most often grows in a...

Learn More About Liver Cancer
Neuroendocrine Tumors

Neuroendocrine tumors grow from cells that act like both nerve cells and hormone-making cells. They can form almost...

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Colon Cancer

Colon cancer starts in the lining of the large intestine, most often in a small growth called a polyp. Screening can find...

Learn More About Colon Cancer
Brain Tumors

A brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in or around the brain. Some are cancer and some are not, and many grow slowly....

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Treatments
Radioembolization

Radioembolization treats tumors in the liver from the inside. A doctor guides a thin tube through an artery to the liver and...

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Liver Transplant

A liver transplant replaces a liver that no longer works, or one with early cancer, with a healthy liver from a donor. It is...

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Tumor Ablation

Tumor ablation destroys a tumor where it is, using heat, cold or another form of energy delivered through a thin needle. It...

Learn More About Tumor Ablation
Hepatectomy

A hepatectomy is surgery to remove part of the liver, most often to take out a tumor. A healthy liver regrows to near its...

Learn More About Hepatectomy
Appendectomy

An appendectomy is surgery to remove the appendix, a small pouch attached to the large intestine. It is most often done for...

Learn More About Appendectomy
Cancer Surgery

Cancer surgery removes a tumor and some healthy tissue around it, or takes a sample to diagnose or stage cancer. It is often...

Learn More About Cancer Surgery

References

  1. American Cancer Society. Embolization Therapy for Liver Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/liver-cancer/treating/embolization.html
  2. RadiologyInfo.org. Chemoembolization.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/chemoembol
  3. National Cancer Institute. Liver Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/liver/patient/adult-liver-treatment-pdq
  4. MedlinePlus. Chemoembolization.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/007385.htm
  5. RadiologyInfo.org. Catheter Embolization.
    https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info/catheter-embolization

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte Therapy

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a one-time treatment for advanced melanoma. Immune cells are taken from your own tumor, grown into billions in a lab and returned to your body through an IV to attack the cancer. It involves surgery, a hospital stay and close care from a specialized team.

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Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your melanoma has spread or come back after other treatments, your oncologist may have brought up TIL therapy. The name is long, and the process has several steps, so it helps to see the whole path before you decide.

Your immune system already sends fighter cells, called T cells, into a tumor. The cells that make it inside are called tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, or TILs. On their own there are too few of them to win, and the cancer can wear them down. TIL therapy takes some of those cells out, grows billions more of them in a lab, and gives them back to you so there are far more cells working against the cancer.

Unlike most cancer medicines, which are given again and again, TIL therapy is given once. It does ask a lot of your body for a few weeks, including surgery, chemotherapy and a hospital stay, so your team checks carefully that it is a good fit and safe for you. This page explains how it works, who it is for, how to get ready, each step, the side effects and what it can do.

What Is TIL Therapy and How Does It Work?

TIL therapy is a type of immunotherapy called cell therapy, because the treatment is made from your own living cells. It is also called adoptive cell transfer.

The idea is to give your immune system reinforcements. T cells found inside a tumor have already recognized the cancer as a threat. In a specialized lab, those cells are multiplied into billions over about three weeks. Before they go back in, a short course of chemotherapy clears out other immune cells, making room for the new ones to take hold and grow. After the infusion, a medicine called interleukin-2 (IL-2) helps the new cells stay active.

The first TIL therapy, lifileucel (Amtagvi), was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in February 2024. It was the first cell therapy approved for a solid tumor. Other cell therapies, such as CAR T-cell therapy, are used for blood cancers and are made in a different way.

What TIL Therapy Is Used For

TIL therapy is approved for adults with melanoma that has spread or cannot be removed with surgery and that has grown after earlier treatment. That earlier treatment includes an immunotherapy medicine called a PD-1 inhibitor and, for melanoma with a BRAF change, targeted therapy.

Who Is a Candidate

TIL therapy may be an option if:

  • You have advanced melanoma of the skin or of the mucous membranes, such as inside the nose or mouth.
  • Your cancer has grown after at least one earlier treatment.
  • You are well enough for an intensive treatment and are up and about for most of the day.
  • At least one tumor can be safely removed with surgery to grow the cells.

Researchers are studying TIL therapy for other solid tumors, such as cervical, lung and head and neck cancers.

Before You Start

Your oncologist first evaluates whether TIL therapy fits you. Expect:

  • Tests of your heart, lungs, kidneys and liver, to make sure your body can handle the chemotherapy and IL-2.
  • Scans and blood work to map the cancer and check your blood counts.
  • A talk about your other medicines, including any steroids, which can weaken the new cells.
  • A plan for fertility and pregnancy, since the chemotherapy can affect both.
  • Help at home. You will need someone to stay with you and drive you after you leave the hospital, and you may need to stay near the treatment center for a while.
  • Insurance review. The team works with your insurance before the cells are made.
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What to Expect

TIL therapy happens in steps over several weeks:

  1. Tumor removal. A surgeon removes a small piece of tumor, often during a short operation. The sample goes to the lab.
  2. Growing the cells. The lab multiplies your TILs into billions over about three weeks. The cells are frozen and shipped back.
  3. Preparation. You are admitted to the hospital for about a week of chemotherapy, called lymphodepletion, that lowers your immune cells to make room for the new ones.
  4. Infusion. The thawed cells are given through an IV, much like a blood transfusion, in a single session of under an hour.
  5. IL-2. You then receive up to six doses of IL-2 to boost the new cells.
  6. Recovery and monitoring. You stay in the hospital until your blood counts recover and side effects ease, often one to three weeks, and some people spend time in the intensive care unit while on IL-2.

After you go home, you have frequent visits and blood tests at first, then scans to see how the cancer is responding, often starting about six weeks after the infusion.

Side Effects and Risks

TIL therapy is intensive, and most side effects come from the chemotherapy and IL-2 rather than the cells themselves. Your team watches for them closely in the hospital.

  • Low blood counts, which raise the risk of infection, bleeding and tiredness. Many people need blood or platelet transfusions until the counts recover.
  • Fever and chills, especially during IL-2.
  • Low blood pressure, a fast heartbeat and fluid buildup, which can affect the heart, lungs and kidneys.
  • Nausea, diarrhea, rash and tiredness.
  • Serious problems, which can be life-threatening, including severe infection, heart or lung problems and kidney injury. Low blood counts can last a long time in some people.

After you go home, call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain or trouble breathing, a fever with low blood counts, bleeding that will not stop, or fainting. Call your care team the same day for new diarrhea, a new rash, swelling in your legs or passing much less urine than usual.

Benefits: What It Can Do

TIL therapy offers another option when melanoma has grown despite other treatment. In the study that led to approval, tumors shrank in about 3 of every 10 people, and for many of them the response lasted more than a year. A small number had their cancer disappear on scans.

It is given once, so after recovery there are no ongoing infusions of the treatment itself. Results vary, and your team will talk with you about what it may do for your cancer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do I need surgery first?

The treatment is made from cells inside your tumor, so a piece of tumor has to be removed to collect them.

How long am I in the hospital?

Most people stay for the chemotherapy, the infusion and the IL-2, and until blood counts recover. That is often two to four weeks in all.

Is TIL therapy the same as CAR T-cell therapy?

Both use your own immune cells. CAR T cells come from your blood and are changed in a lab to find a marker on blood cancer cells. TILs come from your tumor and are multiplied as they are, with no changes made to them.

What if my cells do not grow in the lab?

This happens occasionally. Your team will talk with you about other options, and sometimes another sample can be taken.

Will I need more treatment afterward?

TIL therapy is given once. Your team checks with scans over the following months and talks with you about any next steps based on how the cancer responds.

Who Provides It and Where

TIL therapy is given by a specialized team of medical oncologists, surgeons, cell therapy nurses and lab specialists at a center authorized to give it.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its melanoma and skin cancer specialists evaluate adults with advanced melanoma for TIL therapy, and its Melanoma Nurse Navigator answers questions and helps you take the first steps. The treatment is given at the institute in Orlando.
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Comprehensive Care

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Cancer

Melanoma specialists decide who fits TIL therapy and guide the chemotherapy, cell infusion and IL-2 in the hospital.

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General Surgery

Surgeons remove a piece of melanoma tumor so the immune cells inside it can be grown into the treatment.

Learn More About General Surgery
Pulmonary / Critical Care

Critical care teams watch blood pressure, breathing and fluids closely while some patients receive IL-2 after TIL infusion.

Learn More About Pulmonary / Critical Care
Conditions
Melanoma

Melanoma is a skin cancer that starts in the cells that give skin its color. It is less common than other skin cancers and...

Learn More About Melanoma
Skin Cancer

Skin cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the skin, most often caused by damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. It is...

Learn More About Skin Cancer
Treatments
Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy helps your own immune system find and destroy cancer cells. It is given mostly by IV every few weeks and...

Learn More About Immunotherapy
Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is cancer medicine that zeroes in on a specific gene or protein that helps a cancer grow. It works only...

Learn More About Targeted Therapy
Cancer Rehabilitation

Cancer rehabilitation helps you keep or regain strength, movement and independence before, during and after cancer...

Learn More About Cancer Rehabilitation
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy uses medicines to destroy cancer cells or keep them from growing. It is given by IV or as pills, in cycles with...

Learn More About Chemotherapy
Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy for cancer lowers the hormones some cancers need to grow, or blocks them from reaching cancer cells. It...

Learn More About Hormone Therapy
Lymphedema Therapy

Lymphedema therapy reduces and controls swelling in an arm, leg or other area when lymph fluid builds up, most often after...

Learn More About Lymphedema Therapy

References

  1. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Approves First Cellular Therapy to Treat Patients with Unresectable or Metastatic Melanoma. 2024.
    https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-cellular-therapy-treat-patients-unresectable-or-metastatic-melanoma
  2. National Cancer Institute. CAR T Cells and Other Cell-Based Immunotherapy (T-cell transfer therapy).
    https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/types/immunotherapy/t-cell-transfer-therapy
  3. American Cancer Society. Immunotherapy for Melanoma Skin Cancer.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/melanoma-skin-cancer/treating/immunotherapy.html
  4. Chesney J, et al. Efficacy and safety of lifileucel, a one-time autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte cell therapy, in patients with advanced melanoma after progression on immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies. Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. 2022.
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36600653/

Talk With Your Care Team

Your cancer care team explains each option and plans your treatment with you.

Find an Oncologist

Tumor Marker Test

A tumor marker test measures substances in your blood, urine or tissue that some cancers make in larger amounts. It is most often used to track how well cancer treatment is working and to watch for cancer coming back. A high result on its own does not mean you have cancer.

Medically Reviewed Content
Placeholder from the Orlando Health image library

Research and Evidence for This Page

This page's buttons: See the Cancer Institute. Read by someone weighing a treatment or test: the care team that gives it when only one does, otherwise the doctor finder (never one practice over another).
RULINGEvery page's buttons are chosen for the reader who lands on it

A page shows zero, one or two buttons, each reasoned from the moment its reader is in. Leads go where a real decision exists (planning a birth, a diagnosis in pregnancy, a failed screen, a follow-up specialist, a pediatrician for a healthy newborn). A page read by a parent whose baby is in a NICU now offers the page's own help and the support every NICU family gets, never a sales button. No button anywhere asks anyone to choose a NICU.

  • Nobody plans a NICU stay: a baby comes to one from the delivery room or by transfer between hospitals, so a button to find one serves no reader.
  • A baby in a NICU already has its doctors at the bedside, and most families name a pediatrician before discharge, so a pediatrician button on an apnea page sells to nobody.
  • Serving the business and serving the parent are meant to agree: where no honest lead exists, help that keeps the family with Orlando Health is the business value.
  • Two slots are a ceiling, never a quota: a filler button beside a page's one real action comes off.

Decided 2026-10-20

RULINGPlain words, and no NICU alarm for parents of full-term babies

Labels, closing bands and the line page's opening are factual, with no warmth words and no severity words. A page a healthy newborn's parent reads (jaundice, a glucose check, a hearing screen) never leads with the NICU or closes on a NICU band; nursery care has its own closing.

  • Parents of NICU babies recoil from sweet or sentimental copy.
  • Parents of full-term babies are frightened by NICU detail, and most newborns never need one: neonatal care is five settings, the delivery room, the nursery, the Level II and the Level III and IV NICUs, and follow-up, and the NICU is two of them.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDRelated services are single service lines, in the designer's Services tab

Related services render as the Services tab of the designer's tabs module, as he drew them: six cards on a line page, each one service line on the ruled list, never two specialties under one name, each with one sentence on how that line joins a newborn's care.

  • The designer's service line and location frames show Services, Conditions and Treatments as three tabs, the Services tab holding six single-line cards with a sentence each.
  • The ruled list of children's service lines carries pediatric hematology and pediatric oncology, pulmonology and sleep medicine, neurology and neurosurgery as separate lines; a combined name matches no page that will exist.
  • A gate refuses any service card whose name is not a ruled line.

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDThe page is set in Lufga, the typeface Orlando Health uses, at its three weights

Every page uses Lufga, loaded from orlandohealth.com, at 400, 500 and 700 only. Headings 700, the hero paragraph 500, body and buttons 400.

  • Read on orlandohealth.com, 2026-10-20: the site loads Lufga in three files, Regular 400, Medium 500 and Bold 700, and sets its headings at 700.
  • The designer's frames are set in the same face; an earlier build used a stand-in, which is why its weights read differently beside his frames.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-20

MEASUREDButtons are the designer's slim pills, with an icon in the hero

Pills are about 2.4 times their label tall, regular weight, with no border on solid pills; the two hero pills are equal width across the paragraph, each led by an ink icon chosen from its label. The facility hero's pills carry no icon.

  • Measured across the designer's frames: every pill is 2.3 to 2.5 times its label tall, and the hero pills carry a calendar or a phone before the label.
  • A gate checks every rendered pill against these proportions.

Decided 2026-10-20

RESEARCHBreadcrumbs show a page's place in the site; a back link and the line card give the way back

A library page's breadcrumbs follow its address (Home, Health Library, Conditions, the page), because one condition page serves every line that treats it. The way back to the line comes from two other places: the first card in the page's Services tab is the line itself, always; and a visitor who arrived from a line, unit, team or program page also sees a Back link at the right of the crumb bar, naming that page.

  • Breadcrumbs should show a page's place in the site's hierarchy, never the visitor's history; history trails grow long and repetitive and do nothing for a visitor who arrives from search.
  • A page with more than one parent shows one canonical trail for everyone, which keeps the page's signal to search engines consistent.
  • A separate link back to where the visitor came from is a common pattern (a store's Back to Results) and leaves the canonical trail untouched.
  • Tested in the demo: a parent reading condition pages could not find the way back to the Neonatal Care page.

Sources

Decided 2026-10-21

If your doctor ordered a tumor marker test, you may be worried that a single number will decide what happens next. It will not. A tumor marker result is one piece of information, read together with your symptoms, your exam, imaging tests and, when needed, a biopsy.

Tumor markers are substances, most often proteins, that cancer cells make or that the body makes in response to cancer. Some healthy tissues make them too, and many conditions that are not cancer can raise them. That is why these tests are rarely used alone to find cancer.

Where tumor markers help most is over time. Once a cancer that makes a marker has been found, checking the level again and again can show whether treatment is working and give an early sign if cancer comes back.

This page explains the common tumor markers, why the test is ordered, how to prepare, what happens during the test, and how to understand your results.

What Is a Tumor Marker Test?

A tumor marker test measures how much of a particular substance is in a sample from your body. Most tests use blood. A few use urine, and some look at tissue from a biopsy.

Each marker is linked with one or a few kinds of cancer. When a cancer that makes a marker is growing, the level of that marker often rises. When treatment is working, the level often falls.

Tumor markers are not perfect. Some people with cancer have normal levels, and some people without cancer have raised levels from other conditions, such as an infection, inflammation, liver disease or pregnancy. So your care team looks at a marker alongside your other test results and watches how the level changes over time.

Tumor markers in tissue that guide the choice of medicine, such as HER2 in breast cancer, are covered on our page about molecular profiling.

Kinds of Tumor Marker Tests

Common blood tumor markers, and the cancers they are most often used for, include:

Some blood cancers, such as myeloma, have their own blood and urine protein tests.

Why a Tumor Marker Test Is Ordered

Doctors order tumor marker tests to:

  • Help find out whether a growth may be cancer, together with imaging and a biopsy. For example, a gynecologist may check a marker before surgery for an ovarian cyst, and a urologist may check markers when a lump is found in a testicle.
  • Learn more about a cancer that has been found, since a very high level can say something about its stage or outlook.
  • See how well treatment is working. A falling level often means the cancer is shrinking.
  • Watch for cancer coming back after treatment. A rising level can be an early sign, sometimes before symptoms or scan changes.
  • Screen for prostate cancer. PSA is the one tumor marker commonly used for screening, and whether to have it is a choice you make with your doctor. See prostate cancer screening.

Who Needs One

Most people who have a tumor marker test have already been diagnosed with a cancer that makes a marker, and the test is part of their treatment and follow-up. Others have one while a growth is being checked. Tumor marker tests are not recommended to screen people who have no symptoms for most cancers, including CA-125 for ovarian cancer and CEA for colon cancer, because they give too many false alarms and miss too many cancers.

How to Prepare

Most tumor marker tests need no special preparation. Follow the instructions you are given.

  • Eating and drinking. You can usually eat and drink as normal. Ask whether your test is being done with other blood tests that need fasting.
  • Before a PSA test. Ejaculation in the two days before the test and long bike rides can raise PSA for a short time. Your doctor may ask you to avoid them.
  • Medicines and supplements. Tell your care team what you take. Some, such as certain prostate medicines and high doses of biotin, can affect results.
  • Tell your care team if you are or might be pregnant, since pregnancy raises some markers.
  • Use the same lab when you can. Labs may measure markers in slightly different ways, so results are easiest to compare when they come from the same lab.
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What Happens During the Test

For a blood test, a nurse or lab technician cleans the skin on your arm, places a band above the spot and draws a small amount of blood from a vein with a needle. You may feel a quick sting. It takes a few minutes. If you have a port for cancer treatment, the blood may be drawn from your port.

For a urine test, you are given a cup and instructions. Some tests ask you to collect all your urine over 24 hours at home.

The sample goes to a lab. Results are often ready within a few days.

You can go back to your normal day right after the test.

Risks

A tumor marker test is a simple, safe test.

  • The blood draw can cause brief pain, a small bruise, or rarely lightheadedness.
  • A false alarm. A raised level that turns out not to be from cancer can cause worry and lead to more tests.
  • False reassurance. A normal level does not always mean there is no cancer, which is why your care team uses other tests as well.

Call your care team the same day for swelling, redness or pain where your blood was drawn that gets worse.

Understanding Your Results

Your doctor will go over your results with you. Each lab gives a reference range, and a result above it is called elevated.

  • A single high result does not mean you have cancer. Many conditions that are not cancer can raise tumor markers, and your doctor may repeat the test or order other tests.
  • The trend matters most. During and after treatment, your care team compares each result with your earlier ones. A fall over several tests is usually a good sign. A rise over several tests may lead to a scan.
  • A small change from one test to the next is often normal variation between tests.
  • A normal result is reassuring, and it is weighed with your symptoms and other tests.

If you see a result in your patient portal before you talk with your doctor, try not to read too much into one number. Write down your questions for your next visit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a tumor marker test tell me if I have cancer?

Not on its own. A tumor marker can point to a possible cancer, but a diagnosis almost always needs imaging and a biopsy. Many people with a raised marker do not have cancer.

My level went up a little. Should I be worried?

Small changes are common and can come from normal variation, the lab used, or another condition. Your care team looks at the pattern over several tests before deciding whether anything needs to change.

How often will I have this test?

It depends on your cancer and your treatment. During treatment, it may be checked before each cycle or every few months. After treatment, it is often checked at follow-up visits for several years.

Can I ask for a tumor marker test to screen for cancer?

For most cancers, no screening test uses a tumor marker, because the results are not reliable enough in people without symptoms. PSA screening for prostate cancer is a choice to discuss with your doctor. Ask about the screening tests recommended for your age and risk.

Why was my marker normal even though I have cancer?

Not every cancer makes a marker, and some make it only in small amounts. For those cancers, your care team relies on scans, exams and other tests to follow your progress.

Who Provides It and Where

Tumor marker tests are ordered by oncologists, surgeons, urologists, gynecologists and primary care doctors, and the blood is drawn at a lab or during a clinic or infusion visit. Find a location near you below.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its pancreatic cancer specialists check tumor markers such as CA 19-9 in the blood, and its urologic cancer specialists use tumor marker blood tests with ultrasound to help diagnose testicular cancer.
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[n] doctors foundMany doctors have multiple practice locations. View the doctor's profile for a complete list of their locationsSort By: A to Z
[Doctor Name 1], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
[Address Line]
[City], FL [Zip]
000-000-0000Online Scheduling Available
[Doctor Name 2], MD OncologyOH Medical Group Member[Location]
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[City], FL [Zip]
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Urostomy

A urostomy is surgery that makes a new way for urine to leave your body when the bladder has been removed or can no longer work. Urine drains through a small opening on the belly, called a stoma, into a flat pouch you empty several times a day.

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If you have been told you need a urostomy, it is natural to wonder how your daily life will change. Most often it comes with surgery to remove the bladder for bladder cancer, and the two can feel like a great deal to take in at once. People with a urostomy go back to work, travel, exercise, swim and stay close to the people they love. A nurse who specializes in ostomy care teaches you everything you need before you leave the hospital.

The surgery creates an opening on the belly called a stoma. It is pink or red, moist, and does not hurt when touched, because it has no nerve endings that sense pain. Urine flows out of the stoma all the time, so you wear a pouch over it that sticks to the skin and is emptied into the toilet.

A urostomy is one of several ways to drain urine after the bladder is removed. Others include a new bladder made from the intestine, called a neobladder. Your surgeon will explain which choices fit your body, your health and your cancer.

What Is a Urostomy?

Normally, urine travels from the kidneys through two thin tubes called ureters to the bladder, which stores it until you urinate. A urostomy, also called a urinary diversion, reroutes the ureters so urine leaves through a stoma on the belly instead.

The surgery is done by a urologist, a surgeon who specializes in the urinary tract, under general anesthesia. It is usually done in the same operation that removes the bladder, called a cystectomy.

The stoma is usually on the right side of the belly, a little below the waistline. Before surgery, an ostomy nurse marks the best spot, one you can see and reach easily and that stays clear of skin folds and your belt line.

Kinds of Urostomy

  • Ileal conduit. The most common kind. The surgeon takes a short piece of the small intestine, called the ileum, and joins the ureters to one end. The other end is brought through the belly wall to form the stoma. The piece of intestine is a passageway for urine and does not store it. The rest of the intestine is reconnected, so your bowels work as before.
  • Colon conduit. The same idea using a short piece of the large intestine, chosen when the small intestine is not suitable, for example after radiation to the pelvis.
  • Cutaneous ureterostomy. The ureters are brought directly to the skin without using intestine. It is used less often.

Two other choices do not need an outside pouch: a continent pouch, emptied through a small stoma with a thin tube called a catheter, and a neobladder, which lets you urinate through the urethra.

Why a Urostomy Is Performed

A urostomy is performed when urine can no longer pass through the bladder safely. The most common reason is bladder cancer that has grown into the bladder's muscle wall or keeps returning despite treatment, when the whole bladder is removed.

Other reasons include:

  • Other cancers in the pelvis, such as some cervical cancers and rectal cancers, when surgery removes the bladder along with nearby organs.
  • Damage to the bladder from radiation therapy or from earlier cancer treatment.
  • A bladder that cannot store or empty urine because of nerve damage, a spinal cord injury or a birth defect.
  • A serious injury to the bladder.

Who Is a Candidate

Your team will look at your cancer, your kidney function, your overall health and your ability to care for a stoma. An ileal conduit is often the choice for people who want the simplest surgery and recovery, and for people whose kidney function or health makes a neobladder less suitable. Where the cancer allows, your urologic cancer team will also discuss treatments that keep the bladder.

How to Prepare

  • Meet the ostomy nurse. You learn what the stoma and pouch look like, try on a pouch and have the stoma site marked.
  • Medicines. Tell your surgeon about every medicine and supplement you take. You may need to stop blood thinners and some other medicines for several days before surgery.
  • Get stronger. Walking every day, eating well and quitting smoking help you heal. Your team may refer you to cancer rehabilitation before surgery.
  • Plan for home. Arrange help for the first weeks after you go home.
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What to Expect

During the Surgery

The operation is often done along with removing the bladder and can take several hours. It may be done through one larger incision or with robotic surgery through several small ones. Thin plastic tubes called stents are placed in the ureters to protect the new connections while they heal.

After the Surgery

Most people stay in the hospital for several days. You start walking the day after surgery, and you begin eating as your bowels wake up. A pouch is on from the start. The stent tubes come out through the stoma and are removed a week or two after surgery.

Before you go home, the ostomy nurse teaches you and a family member how to empty the pouch, change it every few days, care for the skin around the stoma and connect a larger bag for overnight drainage.

Recovery

Full recovery takes about six to eight weeks. Avoid heavy lifting during that time to protect the belly wall.

Risks and Complications

All major surgery has risks, including bleeding, infection, blood clots and reactions to anesthesia. Risks specific to a urostomy include:

  • Urinary tract and kidney infections.
  • Leaks where the ureters join the intestine, usually early on.
  • Slow return of bowel function after surgery.
  • Stoma problems over time, such as a bulge in the belly wall next to the stoma called a hernia, a stoma that pushes out more than normal or one that narrows.
  • Skin irritation around the stoma from leaks or a pouch that fits poorly, which an ostomy nurse can usually fix.
  • Kidney stones or changes in kidney function, which your team checks with regular blood tests.

Call 911 or go to the emergency room for chest pain or trouble breathing, fainting, or bleeding from the stoma that will not stop.

Call your care team the same day for little or no urine from the stoma for several hours, a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher, a stoma that turns dark red, purple or black, swelling or pain in one leg, or urine that is cloudy and foul-smelling with back pain.

Results of a Urostomy

A urostomy lets the kidneys drain freely, which protects them, and it allows the bladder and the cancer in it to be removed. Most people adjust well. After recovery, you can usually wear your usual clothes, shower, swim, travel and return to work and exercise. The pouch lies flat under clothing and is not noticeable to others.

Many people find it helps to talk with others who live with an ostomy. Support groups, an ostomy nurse and your cancer team can help with questions about body image and intimacy, which are common and worth raising.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will people be able to tell I have a urostomy?

Usually not. A modern pouch is flat, does not smell when sealed and is hidden under ordinary clothing.

Can I swim and exercise?

Yes, once you have healed. Pouches are waterproof. Ask your team before heavy lifting or contact sports.

How often do I empty the pouch?

Most people empty it when it is about a third full, often every few hours during the day, and connect it to a larger bag at night.

Will I still be able to have sex?

Many people do. Removing the bladder can affect sexual function, so ask your surgeon what to expect and what can help.

Is a urostomy permanent?

After the bladder is removed, a urostomy is usually permanent. Your surgeon can explain whether any other kind of diversion might suit you later.

Who Provides It and Where

Urostomy is performed by urologists, often urologic oncologists or reconstructive urologists, with ostomy nurses who teach stoma care.

  • Orlando Health Cancer Institute. Its urologic cancer team treats bladder and kidney cancers, with the aim of preserving bladder function where possible, and plans surgery, chemotherapy and immune-based medicines with each patient.
  • Orlando Health Medical Group Urology in Winter Park has a reconstructive urologist who performs urostomy, including after treatment for other pelvic cancers.
  • Florida Medical Clinic Orlando Health cares for stomas and stoma problems through its colorectal surgery team.
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Cancer

Bladder cancer that grows into the muscle wall is the most common reason a urostomy follows bladder removal.

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Urologists remove the bladder and build the urostomy, most often an ileal conduit made from a short piece of bowel.

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Women's

Some advanced cervical and other pelvic cancers need surgery that removes the bladder and creates a urostomy.

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Bladder cancer starts in the lining of the bladder, the organ that stores urine. Its most common sign is blood in the urine....

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Urologic cancers start in the urinary tract, which includes the kidneys, ureters, bladder and urethra, or in the male...

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References

  1. American Cancer Society. Urostomy Guide.
    https://www.cancer.org/cancer/managing-cancer/treatment-types/surgery/ostomies/urostomy.html
  2. National Cancer Institute. Bladder Cancer Treatment (PDQ), Patient Version.
    https://www.cancer.gov/types/bladder/patient/bladder-treatment-pdq
  3. MedlinePlus. Ostomy.
    https://medlineplus.gov/ostomy.html
  4. United Ostomy Associations of America. Urostomy.
    https://www.ostomy.org/urostomy/

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