Head and Neck Cancer Patients' Quality of Life: Analysis of Three Instruments

Journal of Dentistry
Elâine Patrícia Alves de Araújo GomesLuiz Evaristo Ricci Volpato

Abstract

Head and neck cancer treatment has provided better cure and survival rates but the patient's quality of life is still an issue. To verify the correlation between the three most used instruments for evaluating the quality of life of head and neck cancer patients. This cross-sectional study evaluated patients treated for head and neck cancer at the Mato Grosso Cancer Hospital, Cuiabá, MT, Brazil. The variables age, gender, cohabitation status, education, religion, smoking, ethnicity, tumor location and histological type and treatment modality were collected. The patients quality of life was assessed by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Quality of Life Measurement System (FACT-H&N), University of Washington Quality of Life Questionnaire (UW-QOL), and EORTC QLQ-C30/EORTC QLQ-H&N35 of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer. The study population consisted of 33 individuals with a mean age of 63.42±11.25 years; 69.70% were males; 54.55% had no partner; 45.45% had only elementary education; 87.9% followed a religion; 84.38% were smokers and 87.50% alcoholics. Squamous cell carcinoma responded for 78.79% of the cases and palate/oropharynx and mouth floor (21.21% each) were the most affected sites. All p...Continue Reading

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