Postoperative Evolution of Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer

Although there is an abundant international literature evaluating quality of life in patients with head and neck cancer, most of these studies include heterogeneous populations from a therapeutic point of view, without discriminating precisely among therapeutic modalities: whether patients underwent surgery or were treated exclusively with nonsurgical modalities such as radiotherapy (RT) or chemotherapy (CT). Our study focuses on analyzing quality of life in patients undergoing primary surgery.

Prospective study. T2-T4 primary head and neck cancer patients treated in our department in the period from 2000 to 2023 completed the survey EORTC QLQ-C30 and EORTC QLQ-H&N35 on 4 occasions: 1, 3, 6 and 12 months after surgery. Patients were classified in groups according to age, tumor location, adjuvant radiotherapy, and the laryngectomy group underwent a separate analysis.

Seventy-seven subjects were included in the present study. The mean age was 59 years, 91% (70 patients) were male. Patients older than 66 years showed better perception, and patients with pharyngeal tumors obtained worse scores than patients with laryngeal tumor.

One year after treatment, most patients rate their HRQOL as "good." Acceptance of the new quality of life after treatment improves with increasing age of the patient. Radiotherapy is associated with a significant worsening of HRQOL in the postoperative period, greater intensity towards the sixth month after surgery.