A descriptive review of the factors contributing to nutritional compromise in patients with head and neck cancer

Abstract

Improved management of patients in posttreatment for head and neck cancer may require a multimodal approach by a multidisciplinary team and is best commenced earlier in the trajectory of the disease.

An Interprofessional Palliative Care Oncology Rehabilitation Program: Effects on Function and Predictors of Program Completion

“…It aims to keep people as active as possible in daily life for as long as possible. The clinical expertise of the 6 team members are combined to target each patient's specific problems by meticulously assessing individual needs so as to properly diagnose and treat their symptom burden 1,3,11,17,20,24 .…”

Extracellular–to–Body Cell Mass Ratio and Subjective Global Assessment in Head-and-Neck Cancers

“…Patients who have been or are being treated for hnc are characterized by compromised nutrition status 17 .…”

Evaluation of acute radiation effects on mandibular movements of patients with head and neck cancer

“…According to some studies 29,41,48,49 from 50 to 60% of patients with H&NC have a relatively impaired feeding due to factors such as sore throat, dysphagia, xerostomy, ageusia, among others, and a significant involuntary weight loss becoming extremely necessary the enteral feeding tube. In this study, 30.8% of the patients fed through NTF since the middle of radiotherapy, and 42.3% had to change the consistency of food at the same period.…”

“…In this study, half of patients had chemotherapy combined with RT. Researchers report that the combination of these treatments presents greater benefit for the tumor control, on the other hand, it increases the toxicity to the body resulting in excessive side effects 17,29 . In our results, however, chemotherapy combined with RT did not increase the incidence of MO and MMO restrictions, confirming the findings of Louise's Kent et al 5 .…”

“…Each patient individually underwent to a brief initial interview and variables such as age, family history of cancer, smoking and alcoholic habits, as well as how long they have being smoking and/or drinking, classification by KPS scale, which is a scale of functional performance used in the prognosis of cancer therapy 27 , and type of feeding 28,29 were collected. Data such as tumor location, histological type of tumor, tumor stage 30 , associated chemotherapy, radiation field and dose per session of RT were collected from the patient's chart for future correlations and characterization of sample.…”