A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF QUALITY OF LIFE OUTCOMES IN HEAD AND NECK CANCER PATIENTS FOLLOWING CURATIVE TREATMENT.

DR. KULKARNI MANIK RAO; DR TINTU THAMPY ABRAHAM; DR MEENA L

Volume : VIII, Issue : VI, June - 2018

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF QUALITY OF LIFE OUTCOMES IN HEAD AND NECK CANCER PATIENTS FOLLOWING CURATIVE TREATMENT.

Dr. Kulkarni Manik Rao, Dr Tintu Thampy Abraham, Dr Meena L

Abstract :

Background:

One of the major health problem in India is Head and Neck cancer,which accounts to 30% of all cancers in men and 11%–16% in women. The disease and its treatment have a disproportionate impact on all aspects of patient’s quality of life (QoL).QoLassessment , aids in the development of rehabilitative measures and also helps in educating the patient.

Objective:

1.To measure the diverse domains of quality of life in head and neck cancer patients.

2.To discover the impact of the type of treatment on the quality of life of the patient.

Materials and Methods:

A comparative study on proven cases of head and neck cancer of all sites and stages following primary mode of treatment will be taken into the study from the period Feuary 2017–august 2017.The EORTC QLC–C30 AND QLQ–HN35 questionnaires translated from the original English version to local language (kannada) was used.The questionnaire has to be filled by each patient –once pretreatment and once postreatment (after 1 month) on OPD basis.

Results:

Overall posttreatmentQoL worsened in all the H&N cancer patients. QoL in tracheostomized individuals were poor.Early stage disease had a better score than advanced stage.Combined modality of treatment showed a poor QoL scores than the other single modalities.

Conclusion:

H&N cancer has a significant impact on individuals QoL.ThisQoL assessment identifies that impact on the individuals functional domain and the symptom scale.