Early stage oropharyngeal carcinomas: comparing quality of life for different treatment modalities.
OBJECTIVE
To compare long-term quality of life outcomes after treating early stage oropharyngeal carcinoma either with surgery, surgery combined with radiotherapy, or surgery combined with chemoradiotherapy.


METHODS
Questionnaire based method: 111 eligible patients agreed to fill out a quality of life questionnaire.


RESULTS
Of the 32 scales contained in the EORTC's combined QLQ-C30 and HN35, 11 scales show significantly better results for the surgery-only treatment group when compared to either surgery combined with radiotherapy or surgery combined with any type of adjuvant therapy. These eleven scales are role function (P = 0.019/0.008), social function (P = 0.01/0.034), nausea (P = 0.017/0.025), pain (P = 0.014/0.023), financial problems (P = 0.030/0.012), speech (P = 0.02/0.015), social eating (P = 0.003/<0.001), mouth opening (P = 0.033/0.016), sticky saliva (P = 0.001/<0.001), swallowing (P < 0.001/<0.001), and dry mouth (P < 0.001/0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Treatment of early stage oropharyngeal carcinoma with surgery alone has definite advantages over treatments including any form of adjuvant therapy when considering quality of life. Advantages manifest themselves especially in functional aspects of the head and neck realm; however general health aspects as well as psychosocial aspects show improvements as well. This study does not show any indication of QOL-related drawbacks of surgery-only treatment approaches.
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Don-Felix
DF
Ryzek
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Konstantinos
K
Mantsopoulos
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Julian
J
Künzel
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Philipp
P
Grundtner
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Johannes
J
Zenk
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Heinrich
H
Iro
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Waldstraße 1, 91054 Erlangen, Germany.
Georgios
0000-0002-7805-3714
G
Psychogios
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D059248:Chemoradiotherapy / Q000379:methods*; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009959:Oropharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires