Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Health related quality of life and survival in patients with head and neck cancer: A systematic review

In a study just published in the journal Oral Oncology -with Annette van Nieuwenhuizen as first author- we systematically reviewed the available scientific evidence on the association between health-related quality of life and survival in patients with head and neck cancer.
Nineteen studies were included in the review. We found strong evidence for a positive association between pre-treatment physical functioning and survival and between change in global quality of life from pre-treatment to 6 months after treatment and survival. I.e. patients with better physical functioning before treatment and with more positive or less negative changes in global quality of life had better survival.

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