Current prognosis and quality of life following surgical treatment for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the most common cancers in the world with a close relation with some risk factor like, tobacco, alcohol consumption and more recently, with human papilloma virus infection. A review of the literature about actual prognosis and quality of life in HNSCC has been done analysing the results of surgical treatment and their impact on the quality of life of patients. Despite the elevated incidence of HNSCC, the survival rate has increased considerably over the last years thanks to the development of new surgical techniques, such as, microvascular reconstruction or transoral robotic surgery and the most accurate adjuvant radiochemotherapy. Even in bad prognosis cases, there are many options to take into account not only with curative expectation, even, keeping in mind the preservation of the quality of life of patients. Due to the improvement of the prognosis, the interest of surgeons has been focused on preserve the aesthetics, functional and psychosocial aspect of patients without a worsening of the main objective which is the curative result. Although prognosis of HNSCC has improved, further studies are necessary to understand the behaviour in every case and determine how the impact on the quality of life can be a useful tool to individualize the therapies.

Extracellular vesicles miR‐210 as a potential biomarker for diagnosis and survival prediction of oral squamous cell carcinoma patients

“… 20 , 21 Despite increased serum exosomal miR‐210 expression was previously reported in glioma and renal cancer patients 13 , 22 raising doubts on its specificity for OSCC diagnosis, our and previous findings 12 demonstrate that miR‐210 act as an oncomiR in OSCC and its expression is not affected by age, gender, or relevant pathological variables such as TNM classification, further reinforcing the concept that EV‐miR‐210 secretion is indeed strictly related to the presence of the OSCC per se . From a clinical point of view, the early detection of OSCC offers several advantages: firstly, it allows to perform a conservative organ function surgery improving the quality of life of the patient after cancer removal 23 ; secondly, the early diagnosis could identify these tumors before they spread in the lymph node or invade surrounding tissue. 24 Finally, it has been shown that the removal of OSCC in an early stage prolongs the survival rate of these patients.…”

In-Vivo and Ex-Vivo Tissue Analysis through Hyperspectral Imaging Techniques: Revealing the Invisible Features of Cancer

“…Despite this, in the literature it is reported that up to 20% of patients will have a final diagnosis of positive or close margins despite having negative FS intraoperatively. Because of the difficulties in treating this challenging form of cancer, the estimated five-year survival rate of SCC is only 40 to 60% with treatment [131]. There exists a great need to provide more near-real-time information and guidance to the operating surgeon.…”

Comprehensive gene cluster analysis of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma TCGA RNA‐seq data defines B cell immunity‐related genes as a robust survival predictor

“…In the United States, 50 000 cases are diagnosed each year and more than 10 000 deaths are attributable to this disease 1 . The survival rate of HNSCC is only 50% by 5 years after diagnosis, and this has improved little in the past 30 years despite significant progress in therapeutic interventions, including surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy 2,3 . A better understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms that regulate HNSCC progression will help identify new prognostic biomarkers for prediction of patients' survival rate and may also indicate novel therapeutic targets to improve treatment response in patients with HNSCC.…”