Radiation related morbidities and their impact on quality of life in head and neck cancer patients receiving radical radiotherapy

Abstract

Although 50-70% of head and neck cancer patients in India receive radiotherapy (RT), radiation-related acute and late morbidities and their impact on quality of life (QOL) are infrequently reported. Acute and late radiation morbidities and QOL were assessed in a prospective longitudinal study of 45 patients with head and neck cancers receiving radical RT to a dose of 7000 cGy in conventional fractionation. Grade II acute morbidities experienced by the largest percent of the sample during the course of RT pertained to the mucosa (66.4%), salivary gland (84%), and oesophagus (53%). These morbidities led to an increase in the symptom scores of appetite loss (76.46), fatigue (65.75) and pain (44.77). This increase in the symptom scores consequently led to a significant decline in physical, social and emotional functioning as well as global health status score during the course of RT (p < 0.001). Scores improved after 1 month of RT but did not reach the pre-RT value. Future studies may consider correlating QOL assessment to significant patient and disease related parameters such as performance status, weight loss, stage and site of disease.

Prevalence and correlates of symptoms and uncertainty in illness among head and neck cancer patients receiving definitive radiation with or without chemotherapy

“…Study findings related to symptoms are congruent with published literature regarding symptoms and treatment side effects among head and neck cancer patients [1,3,5,[30][31][32][33]. Patients experienced symptoms as early as the first week of radiation.…”

“…Uncertainty in illness has been previously observed in other cancer populations [30]. This study is the first to document the presence of uncertainty in illness among oropharyngeal and laryngeal cancer patients.…”

“…Since many of depressive symptoms are somatic, once a patient is identified as having higher depressive symptoms, clinicians need to evaluate the patient in light of individual symptoms, characteristics, and circumstances. It is also important to evaluate how much disruption the symptoms are causing in the patient's life [16,30,34]. Additional research with a larger sample size is needed to identify patient characteristics and symptoms in the oropharyngeal and laryngeal cancer population that predict severe depression at later time points.…”

Morbidity And Quality Of Life Among Head And Neck Cancer Patients Treated With Radical Radiotherapy

“…The relative frequencies of the radiation morbidity in this study are high but largely similar to those reported in other studies (8)(9)(10)(11). In the literature the most commonly reported radiation side effects are mucositis and xerostomia, both estimated at 80% (10, 12), skin reaction estimated at 90% (13), pain and suffering estimated at 69% (11) and pain on swallowing estimated at 56% (14).…”

Xerostomia: reasons and methods of correction

“…Синдром сухого рта выявляет-ся с высокой частотой у пациентов с опухолями головы и шеи, после проведения радиотерапии, химиотерапии и лучевой терапии [24][25][26][27]. Установлено, что уже при подве-дении суммарной очаговой дозы 10 Гр, после первой неде-ли лечения отмечается существенное снижение слюноот-деления на 50-60%, а степень поражения слюнных желез напрямую зависит от общей дозы облучения [28,29].…”