 For example, cancer of the thyroid gland may cause symptoms due to compressions of certain structures of the head and neck; pressure on the laryngeal nerves may cause voice changes, narrowing of the windpipe may cause stridor, pressure on the gullet may cause dysphagia and so on.Surgical removal or debulking is sometimes used to alleviate symptoms of the mass effect even if the underlying pathology is not curable.In neurology, a mass effect is the effect exerted by any mass, including, for example, an evolving intracerebral hemorrhage (a bleeding within the skull) presenting with a clinically significant hematoma.