Telehealth Interventions in Head and Neck Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review

Head and neck cancer (HNC) and its treatments often result in adverse effects that impair a patient's quality of life. Although intensive rehabilitative strategies can be used, their applicability can be limited due to patient-specific and socioeconomic barriers. Telehealth interventions represent a possible novel approach to increase access to these services and improve posttreatment quality of life in the HNC population.

The objective of this systematic review was to identify studies investigating telemedicine-based interventions for HNC patients to determine whether there is a consensus concerning the cost-effectiveness, clinical utility, and accessibility of this model for rehabilitation.

PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and CINAHL were used to identify literature without time limit for publication. A critical appraisal of individual sources was conducted by 2 reviewers. Sixteen studies met inclusion criteria.

Studies related to telehealth interventions in the HNC population are limited. Salient themes included feasibility of telehealth as an intervention, effects on self-management and knowledge, impact on quality of life, physical and psychiatric symptoms, and cost.

Although the current literature presents promising data, indicating that telehealth interventions may be both effective and cost-efficient in the management of HNC patients, more research is needed to definitively elucidate their role in management.

Telehealth interventions are valuable for clinicians as an alternative to expand access to care across the cancer continuum, to strengthen patients' knowledge and consequently their self-management, and to provide continuity of services as well as for remote monitoring of symptoms and response to treatment.