Elsevier

Oral Oncology

Volume 43, Issue 9, October 2007, Pages 843-868
Oral Oncology

Review
A structured review and theme analysis of papers published on ‘quality of life’ in head and neck cancer: 2000–2005

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oraloncology.2007.02.006Get rights and content

Summary

Over the past 10 years, quality of life (QOL) has been increasingly recognised as an important outcome parameter in head and neck cancer. Validated questionnaires have emerged and there has been an increase in the number of papers published each year. The aim of this article is to review the literature over the past five years (2000–2005 inclusive), to identify papers reporting outcomes using patient self-competed questionnaires and group these into themes. The tabulated summary allows for the areas of health related quality of life research to be identified and to explore issues that are perhaps deficit in the literature. The three authors independently searched the literature published in the English language using the ISI search engine with cross-reference using Pub Med and Ovid. The search terms were; quality of life, questionnaire, and head and neck cancer. Studies were placed in to one of five themes. There were 165 studies identified. The numbers in each theme were predictors of QOL [Hassanein KA, Musgrove BT, Bradbury E. Functional status of patients with oral cancer and its relation to style of coping, social support and psychological status. Br J Oral Maxillofac Surg 2001;39:340–5.], functional outcome [Klug C, Neuburg J, Glaser C, Schwarz B, Kermer C, Millesi W. Quality of life 2–10 years after combined treatment for advanced oral and oropharyngeal cancer. Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg 2002;31:664–9.], questionnaire development [Hanna E, Sherman A, Cash D, Adams D, Vural E, Fan CY, et al. Quality of life for patients following total laryngectomy vs chemoradiation for laryngeal preservation. Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2004;130:875–9.], randomised clinical trials [Kanatas AN, Rogers SN. A national survey of health-related quality of life questionnaires in head and neck oncology. Ann R Coll Surg Engl 2004;86:6–10.], and reviews [Kanatas AN, Rogers SN. A national survey of health-related quality of life questionnaires in head and neck oncology. Ann R Coll Surg Engl 2004;86:6–10.]. Although many facets of HRQOL following head and neck cancer have been explored over the last five years the paper identifies issues where research is still lacking.

Section snippets

Methods

The three authors independently searched and scrutinised the literature. The ISI search engine with cross-reference using Pub Med and Ovid was searched with the terms “Quality of life”, “Questionnaire” and “Head and neck cancer” for the period 2000–2005 inclusive. Quality of life was used as the main search term as it is more inclusive than HRQOL and is more commonly used as a keyword. However cross-reference was made using HRQOL as a keyword. In order to validate the main search terms, a

Results

A summary of results of this review are given in “Table 1” from the themed analysis and the tabulated review for each theme in Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6. The abbreviations to the tables are given in “Appendix”.

The review of the literature identified 165 papers. The number of papers ranged from 18 to 34 each year. The majority of papers was on a general head and neck cohort60 or involved a combination of various sites.30 Some were site specific such as laryngeal,21 oral cavity14

Discussion

The purpose of this review was to collate all the different publications in the English language on HRQOL head and neck cancer over the last five years that have used self-completed questionnaires. The concise overview allows for a simple summary of the main areas of research and assists in the identification of individual studies and their specific focus of interest. The review helps to identify where research is leading and areas that potentially need further exploration.

The review has

Conclusion

There is a substantial body of the literature available to clinicians on HRQOL following head and neck cancer. Clinical outcomes research on predictors of HRQOL and the relationship with function predominate. As our understanding progresses, future research may comprise a greater proportion of randomised trials and intervention studies.

Conflict of Interest Statement

None declared.

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