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Survival in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Depends on Quality of Life
The study indicates that identifying patients with poor quality of life could help in recognizing patients with aggressive tumours.
Researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Centre analysed 495 people at four hospitals with head and neck cancer within the previous two years. They were asked about physical and emotional quality of life, including pain, eating and swallowing, speech and emotional well-being.
"Low quality of life may have value in screening patients for recurrence. By identifying patients with poor quality of life, we may also be able to identify early on those who have particularly aggressive tumours," said Carrie A. Karvonen-Gutierrez, lead study author and research associate at the U-M School of Public Health and the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
The findings revealed that general physical health and quality of life issues had an impact on survival.
Also patients who reported difficulty with pain, eating and speech were significantly less likely to survive.
"Our findings validate the concept that doctors have long recognized: that persistent or increasing pain is a worrisome clinical finding," said Sonia A. Duffy, study author, a research scientist at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, associate professor of nursing at the U-M School of Nursing and research assistant professor of otolaryngology at the U-M Medical School.
"Perhaps in the future, quality of life data will be routinely collected in a standardized way, and trends in pain scores will trigger more aggressive examinations for cancer recurrence," she added.
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