Head and neck cancers are rare, but known to be severe -- they can strip away a person's voice, distort the face and rob the basic abilities to eat, drink and swallow. The cancer can be so disfiguring, some patients seldom appear in public.

In a tear-filled press conference this week, Denver Nuggets coach George Karl announced he has a type of neck and throat cancer.

Karl said he will continue to coach, but will miss some games and practices. His type of cancer -- a squamous cell tumor found on his right tonsil -- is the most common and expected to be treatable with radiation and chemotherapy.

Also this week, Esquire profiled film critic Roger Ebert, who also had a head and neck cancer. He suffered complications from surgery to treat the cancer that had spread to the salivary gland. The magazine published a full-page photo of the film critic, who no longer has a lower jaw.

Ebert spent little time feeling sorry for himself: "If we think we have physical imperfections, obsessing about them is only destructive. Low self-esteem involves imagining the worst that other people can think about you. That means they're living upstairs in the rent-free room," he wrote on his blog after the photo published.

While Ebert cannot speak, he continues to lambaste bad movies online.

Head and neck cancers include abnormalities in the nasal cavity, sinuses, lips, mouth, tongue, esophagus, salivary glands, throat, and voice box.

It just takes away your dignity, your ability to go out in public and do simple things -- like you can't go out to dinner.
--Christine Gourin, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine