Researchers attribute a patient’s physical quality of life as an important factor in determining the outcome of the cancer. Determining the patent’s level of quality of life can help thyroid cancer treatment specialists identify head and neck cancer patients with particularly aggressive tumors. Degree of perceived pain, eating and swallowing difficulties, speech and emotional well-being all comprise physical quality of life variables.
The term head and neck cancer refers to cancers with biologically similar characteristics originating from the upper aerodigestive tract, including the lip, oral cavity (mouth), nasal cavity, paranasal sinuses, pharynx, and larynx.
The first symptom of head and neck cancer can be an enlarged lymph node in the neck. If detected early, the cancer is highly curable with surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments. Not all tumors are the same according to salivary gland cancer surgeons who agree that that physical health and quality of life issues are strongly associated with survival.
Again and again research validates the concept that persistent or increasing pain is a worrisome clinical finding. Quality of life data will perhaps be routinely collected in a standardized way in the near future, and trends in pain scores will trigger more aggressive examinations for cancer recurrence.
In most cases, reducing pain can improve the patient’s outcome. If in minimizing pain, the chance of cancer recurrence or patient survival is improved, the effort is worthwhile, regardless of why these factors are related. During a diagnosis, cancer near a nerve may be noticed first; small islands of cancer near a nerve can cause substantial pain before the cancer is detected on routine examination or imaging scans. For more detailed information about head and neck cancer, parotid gland surgery, or research on the correlation between quality of life and cancer patient outcomes, contact your local cancer specialists to learn more.
