Clinical ArticlesPain, function, and psychologic outcome before, during, and after intraoral tumor resection*
Section snippets
Patients and methods
A retrospective investigation was carried out based on a standardized rehabilitation questionnaire that included 147 items. A total of 3,500 patients who had been treated for oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were invited to participate in this study. Of the 3,500 patients, 1,652 filled out the questionnaire. The other 1,848 patients did not answer. We were able to enroll 1,652 patients (413 women [25.0%] and 1,239 men [75.0%]) for the statistical investigation of this study. Their age
Results
From the clinical record, it was noted that in this inhomogeneous group of patients, different treatment modalities had been used. Early-stage SCCs were treated exclusively surgically, whereas late-stage diseases often received a combined treatment regimen of adjuvant radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy (Table 1).Stage* Surgery % (n = 644) Surgery and Radiotherapy % (n = 362) Surgery and Chemotherapy % (n = 53) Surgery, Radiotherapy, and Chemotherapy % (n = 107) I
Discussion
In the last decade, QOL assessment has attracted increasing attention as a method for both clinical studies and routine follow-up in cancer treatment.20 In the head and neck region, especially, this had led to the development of new measures of QOL such as the EORTC-questionnaire's head and neck module21 and other scales.17, 22, 23
It is well accepted today that the measurement of QOL should rely on the patients' own reports and be multidimensional, reflecting physical, functional, and
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their appreciation to the German-Austrian-Swiss Association for Head and Neck Tumors for their support. In addition, we are grateful to those of all of the departments of oral and maxillofacial surgery that contributed their patients and their time and efforts to this work.
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2017, Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial SurgeryCitation Excerpt :Pain is an important factor related to patient discomfort and functional impairment in cancer patients, especially in the time before surgery. However, according to Gellrich et al., the quality of life of cancer patients after tumor resection is affected mostly by functional disorders such as speech or impaired shoulder mobility than by pain alone (Gellrich et al., 2002). A retrospective study conducted by Dijkstra et al. revealed the presence of postoperative shoulder pain in about 70% of patients who underwent neck dissection (pain less than 23 mm in a 100-mm VAS).
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Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr Gellrich: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of Freiburg, Hugstetterstr 55, D-79106 Freiburg, Germany; e-mail: [email protected]