%0 Journal Article
%T Health-related Quality of life in 640 head and neck cancer survivors after radiotherapy using EORTC QLQ-C30 and QLQ-H&N35 questionnaires
%A Stephen Wan Leung
%A Tsair-Fwu Lee
%A Chih-Yen Chien
%A Pei-Ju Chao
%A Wen-Ling Tsai
%A Fu-Min Fang
%J BMC Cancer
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2407-11-128
%X A cross-sectional investigation was conducted to assess the HR-QoL of 640 HNC patients with cancer-free survival of more than 2 years. Among them, 371 patients were treated by two-dimensional RT (2DRT), 127 by three-dimensional conformal RT (3DCRT), and 142 by intensity-modulated RT (IMRT). The EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire and QLQ-H&N35 module were used. A general linear model multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyze the prognosticators of HR-QoL.By multivariate analysis, the variables of gender, annual family income, tumor site, AJCC stage, treatment methods, and RT technique were prognosticators for QLQ-C30 results, so were tumor site and RT technique for H&N35. Significant difference (p < 0.05) of HR-QoL outcome by different RT techniques was observed at 2 of the 15 scales in QLQ-C30 and 10 of the 13 scales in H&N35. Compared with 2DRT, IMRT had significant better outcome in the scales of global QoL, physical functioning, swallowing, senses (taste/smell), speech, social eating, social contact, teeth, opening mouth, dry mouth, sticky saliva, and feeling ill.The technological advance of RT substantially improves the head-and-neck related symptoms and broad aspects of HR-QoL for HNC survivors.Health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) and its assessment have become increasingly important in health care, especially in the field of chronic diseases. Conventionally, the endpoints of medical care for cancer patients usually focused on the so-called survival rate, local control rate, or complication rate. These endpoints were usually assessed from the physician's points of view. These assessments lacked knowledge and understanding of the patients' mental and emotional well being. HR-QoL generally refers to the patient's perception of the effects of the disease and the impact on the patient's daily functioning, and has two fundamental premises. First, it is a multi-dimensional survey incorporating physical, psychological, social, and emotional functional domains.
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/11/128