Abstract
Quality of life (QOL) of cancer patients has attracted attention in recent years and will be an important social matter. However, QOL of head and neck cancer patients has not been defined and the assessment of QOL of these patients has not been established. We collected a questionnaire concerning QOL from 163 head and neck cancer patients after operation and obtained the following results.
The questionnaire included four major items. (1) status of health, (2) comparison with normal individuals of the same ages, (3) degrees of satisfaction in daily life and (4) Grogono-Woodgate Index consisting of 10 sub-items concerning daily life. The collected replies were all scored to compare between types of head and neck cancer.
The study included a total of 163 patients (123 males and 40 females): 44 cases of laryngeal cancer, 34 cases of hypopharyngeal cancer, 31 cases of tongue cancer, 25 cases of cancer in the oral cavity (tongue excluded), 15 cases of oropharyngeal cancer, 7 cases of naso-sinus cancer and 7 cases of other types of head and neck cancer. They were aged 61.2 years on average.
After operation, the scores were inferior to nomal persons with regard to all the questioned items. Specially for conversation, meal-taking and working ability, the patients had much less ability. Roughly speaking, postoperative general status was favorable in patients with laryngeal cancer. In tongue cancer and oro-pharyngeal cancer, QOL was poor with frequent troubles in speaking and meal-taking. Owing to esophageal reconstruction using the free jejunum, difficulties in meal-taking decreased in frequency in patients with hypopharyngeal cancer.
