Impact of Treatment Related Side Effects in Quality of Life of Patients with Head and Neck Cancer

Abstract

Cancer is the leading cause of death in all parts of the world. Head and neck cancer (HNC) comprises a unique group of aero-digestive tract malignancies that include the seventh most common cancer in the world. As patients receiving chemotherapy would usually experience many side effects and these can affect their quality of life captiously. So that this study can be used in amelioration of the Quality of life of patients with head and neck cancer. By understanding the quality of life status, therapy could be optimized accordingly or take precautionary measures to avoid that specific effect. A Cross-sectional study was carried out among 25 samples in the Department of Oncology, ESI PGIMSR, Rajajinagar of Bengaluru. The data was collected by using EORTC QLQ C 30 and HNC 35 questionnaires and responses were recorded. All information was processed and analyzed by using Microsoft Excel. The majority of the subjects included in the study were males (23, 92%) followed by females (8, 8%) The highest number of subjects included in the study belonged to the 50-59 years age group (9, 36%) followed by 60-69 age group (8, 32%). Out of 25 study subjects, 15 patients had social habits of smoking (37%) Alcohol consumption (15,39%), tobacco chewing (5,13%) and No habits (4,11%). The Quality-of-Life score obtained from the 25 study subjects who were undergoing any treatment was found to have a neutral to good quality of life (not excellent). The average raw score and the respective linear score were found to be 4.16,52.66 for global health status, the Functional scale was found to have 1.76,74.8 and the Symptom scale was found to be 1.88,29.29. The correlation was done in SPSS software and found a negative value which interpreted as the increasing Side Effects is leading to the decline in quality of life.