Late Toxicity and Long-term Quality of Life in Head and Neck Cancer Survivors

Head and neck malignancies and their treatments affect a variety of body functions, most notably breathing, swallowing, and speaking. These functions are central to most people, therefore head and neck cancer can cause significant physical, emotional, and social problems, reducing quality of life (QoL) considerably.

The primary research questions of this study are:

1. What areas of QoL are reduced or improved (≥ 10 point difference in an EORTC QLQ subscale) in the long-term (> 5y and ≥10y) compared to reference data from HNC patients before and 1 year after treatment?
2. What areas of QoL are reduced or improved (≥ 10 point difference in an EORTC QLQ subscale) in the long-term (> 5y and ≥10y) compared to the age- and sex-matched general population?
3. Do problems with swallowing, speech, senses, dry mouth, sticky saliva, coughing, social eating, teeth, fatigue, physical functioning, and toxicity differ in survivors who received surgery alone vs. radiotherapy alone vs. surgery plus adjuvant therapy vs. multimodal treatment without surgery (adjusted for age, gender, tumour stage, site, time since diagnosis, recurrence, subsequent treatments, co-morbidity)?

The survivors (n=1,200) will be invited for a clinical visit and they will complete questionnaires.

Funding: European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)

Kooperationspartner:

Dina Aly, Cairo, Egypt
Cecilie Delphin Amdal, Oslo, Norway
Guro Astrup, Oslo, Norway
Amin Ayman, Cairo, Egypt
Emilie Beulque, Nancy, France
Kristin Bjordal, Oslo, Norway
Andreas Boehm, Leipzig, Germany
Pierluigi Bonomo, Florence, Italy
Paolo Bossi, Milano, Italy
Bente Brokstad Herlofson, Oslo, Norway
Joaquim Castro Silva, Porto, Portugal
Andreas Dietz, Leipzig, Germany
Gilles Dolivet, Nancy, France
Tatiana Dragan, Brussels, Belgium
Fréderic Duprez, Ghent, Belgium
Zeinab Elsayed, Cairo, Egypt
Cherry Estilo, New York, USA
Razvan Galalae, Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Rachel Galot, Brussels, Belgium
Cesare Grandi, Trento, Italy
Thordis Granitzka, Jena, Germany
Vincent Grégoire, Brussels, Belgium
Orlando Guntinas-Lichius, Jena, Germany
Eva Hammerlid, Gothenburg, Sweden
Marcus Hezel, Hamburg, Germany
Johanna Inhestern, Jena, Germany
Femke Jansen, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
René Leemans, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Lisa Licitra, Milano, Italy
Jean-Pascal Machiels, Brussels, Belgium
Siano Marco, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Atsushi Motegi, Chiba, Japan
Sjoukje Oosting, Groningen, The Netherlands
Monica Pinto, Naples, Italy
Katja Polz, Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Aron Popovtzer, Tel Aviv, Israel
Judith Raber-Durlacher, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Eva Remenar, Budapest, Hungary
Ricardo Ribeiro Gama, São Paulo, Brazil
Marcos Santos, Brasilia, Brazil
Claudia Schmalz, Kiel, Germany
Christian Simon, Lausanne, Switzerland
Primoz Strojan, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Iwona Tomaszewska, Krakow, Poland
Silke Tribius, Hamburg, Germany
Sanja Trivic, Belgrade, Serbia
Dirk van Gestel, Brussels, Belgium
Irma Verdonck-de Leeuw, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jan Vermorken, Antwerp, Belgium
Christian Wittekind, Gießen, Germany
Noam Yarom, Tel Aviv, Israel
Karim Zaoui, Heidelberg, Germany