Impact of waiting time for treatment on survival in patients undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancer

Autor: Tapesh Bhattacharyya, V.P. Sanudev Sadanandan, Atanu Bhattacharjee, M. Geetha, P. Kiran, Sanjana Santhosh
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Cancer Policy. 13:1-4
ISSN: 2213-5383
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcpo.2017.03.014
Popis: Background Most of the patients of head and neck cancers are treated with concurrent chemo radiation or radiotherapy alone. Waiting time prior to radiotherapy is a major problem in many radiotherapy centres with reported delays of 70 days or even more especially in developing countries. Objective This study aims to determine the impact of waiting time for radiotherapy on survival of patients of head and neck cancer. Materials and methods Patients of squamous cell carcinomas of larynx, oropharynx, hypopharynx and nasopharynx treated with radiotherapy between January 2012 and December 2015 are considered in this study. A total of 287 patients' case files were analyzed to explore the effect of delay in starting radiotherapy on overall survival. Data was entered and analyzed using R software(R for Windows, version 3.1.1). Survival analysis was performed on different patient parameters to point-out the effect of waiting time for treatment initiation. Results It has been observed that waiting time for radiotherapy should not cross 45 days to get any survival benefit. However patients will get maximum survival advantage if treatment can be started within 20 days from the date of diagnosis. Conclusion This study revealed waiting time for radiotherapy has significant impact on survival of head and neck cancer patients. The optimum window period of waiting time for radiotherapy to provide maximal survival benefit to head and neck cancer patients is around 20–45 days.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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