Completion of Radiotherapy for Local and Regional Head and Neck Cancer in Medicare

Abstract

Failure to complete uninterrupted radiotherapy is common among Medicare enrollees with head and neck cancer. Surgery before radiotherapy is associated with an increased likelihood of completing radiotherapy. At a subset of sites, chemotherapy is associated with a decreased likelihood of completing radiotherapy. Further research is needed to identify factors associated with noncompletion of radiotherapy among nonsurgical patients and patients who receive chemotherapy.

Clinical Audit in Radiation Oncology: Results from One Academic Centre in Delhi, India

“…In the curatively planned, 75% completed the treatment optimally; and rest 25% had interruption or incomplete treatment. In head and neck and cervical cancer, treatment interruptions for radiation or chemoradiotherapy are noted in 35-55% of the patients (Serkies and Jassem, 2004;Patel et al, 2008;Fesinmeyer et al, 2009;Sethi et al, 2010). At one Chicago county hospital, 40% of the patients planned for chemo-radiotherapy did not receive the treatment course (Patel et al, 2008).…”

Premature Discontinuation of Curative Radiation Therapy: Insights from Head and Neck Irradiation

“…In fact, a literature search on PubMed for publications related to early treatment withdrawal from curative irradiation for H&N tumors revealed only 3 reports written in English and published in the last 15 years. 4,12,13 None of these papers specifically addressed the question of PDCRT.…”

Compliance to Head and Neck Radiotherapy in Our Patient Population

“…[15] We evaluated multiple socio-economic, demographic, tumor related and treatment related variables as risk factor for non-compliance, but no variable was significant enough to predict non-compliance. The relatively small sample size and low number of missed treatments might have precluded finding other factors that predicted compliance.…”