Abstract
Terminal care for the patients with head and neck cancer is very important, however, few studies have focused on it. This study shows the problems in terminal care of patients with head and neck cancer by analyzing the palliative treatment of 78 patients who died from head and neck cancer.
The problems comprised insufficient disclosure of the terminal illness and little public and familial support. As a result of these circumstances, more terminal patients with head and neck cancer required hospitalization, meaning that it was not necessary for 28% of these patients to be hospitalized. Eighty-two percent of the patients were in the hospital for definitive treatment of cancer, not in a hospice. Furthermore, a longer period of hospitalization is required with an average period of 71 days.
