Association of Treatment Delays with Survival for Patients with Head and Neck Cancer Undergoing Surgery and Radiotherapy at the Philippine General Hospital
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32412/pjohns.v39i2.2177Keywords:
head and neck neoplasms, radiotherapy, adjuvant, survival rate, treatment outcome, time-to-treatment, surgery, disease-free survival, delayed diagnosis, retrospective studies, postoperative careAbstract
Objective: To identify in what phases in the treatment of head and neck cancer do delays
happen at a tertiary hospital and to determine the association between the length of treatment
delays and the oncologic outcomes (disease-free survival and overall survival) for patients with
head and neck cancer.
Methods:
Design: Retrospective Cohort Study
Setting: Tertiary National University Hospital
Participants: Sixty-eight (68) patients who had surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy for invasive head and neck cancer at the Philippine General Hospital during the 5-year period of January 2014 to December 2019 were included in the initial consideration. Only 15 had survival data and were thus eligible for inclusion in this study.
Results: The median treatment package time for head and neck cancers in our institution was 27.6 weeks or 193 days. The treatment package time statistically correlated with both overall survival, F(1,13)=12.952, p<0.005, R2=0.499, and disease-free survival, F(1-13)=12.823, p<0.005, R2= 0.497. However, the independent effects of other predictors such as time interval between first consult to histopathologic diagnosis, diagnosis to surgery, and surgery to post-operative radiotherapy, showed no statistically significant association with overall survival and disease free survival.
Conclusion: All study patients experienced treatment delays from diagnosis to surgery, and surgery to adjuvant radiation therapy, and in their total treatment package time. The positive correlation among treatment package time, and disease-free and overall survival in this study must be further investigated in order to elucidate the true effect of delays across time intervals in the treatment of head and neck cancer in the Philippine General Hospital. Every effort should be made towards timely management of these patients.
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Copyright transfer (all authors; where the work is not protected by a copyright act e.g. US federal employment at the time of manuscript preparation, and there is no copyright of which ownership can be transferred, a separate statement is hereby submitted by each concerned author). In consideration of the action taken by the Philippine Journal of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery in reviewing and editing this manuscript, I hereby assign, transfer and convey all rights, title and interest in the work, including copyright ownership, to the Philippine Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Inc. (PSOHNS) in the event that this work is published by the PSOHNS. In making this assignment of ownership, I understand that all accepted manuscripts become the permanent property of the PSOHNS and may not be published elsewhere without written permission from the PSOHNS unless shared under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
