Abstract
Objective: To assess the correlation between subjective symptom evaluation and tumor recurrence status in the 2 first years of follow-up of patients treated for head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (SCC).
Method: Retrospective study of patients treated curatively for oral, oropharyngeal, hypopharyngeal, and laryngeal SCC between 2008 and 2010. Review of reported symptoms and tumor recurrence status during the first 2 years posttherapy. Assessment of the degree of correlation with Phi coefficient and Student t test.
Results: One hundred one patients were included, of which 33% presented local and/or regional recurrence. Twenty-one percent of the patients with recurrent disease were asymptomatic, and 50% of the patients with recurrences did not report any change in symptom’s intensity. On the other side, 66% of recurrence-free patients mentioned various symptoms, and of these 15% reported an increase in symptom’s intensity during the 2 years following treatment. The symptom-recurrence correlation is better in patients treated with unimodal therapy (P < .05) and in patients with initial early-stage tumors (stages I-II; P < .05).
Conclusion: Specialized and close follow-up in head and neck cancer patients is mandatory because of the inconstant correlation between symptoms and recurrence status and due to the fact that more than 20% of the patients with recurrences are asymptomatic.
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