Abstract 901: Quality of life among oropharyngeal cancer survivors
Authors: Koric Alzina , Monroe Marcus , Kim Seungmin , Chang Esther , Hu Qingqing , Hu Siqi , Hashibe Mia 
Published: July 2021

Purpose: Oropharyngeal cancer incidence continues to increase in the United States. Studies on the quality of life (QOL) experienced by oropharyngeal cancer patients usually assessed QOL one year after diagnosis instead of in the long term, and most were hospital-based. The aim of this study is to assess oral health and QOL in oropharyngeal cancer survivors in a population-based cohort over a long term follow-up.

Methods: First primary oropharyngeal cancer patients, with confirmed cancer diagnosis from 1996 to 2016 were identified in the Utah Cancer Registry. Between January and May of 2019, the patients completed the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core-30 (EORTC QLQ-C30), Quality of Life Questionnaire Head and Neck Cancer Module (EORTC QLQ-H&N35) and Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14) questionnaire. Adjusted linear regression was used to assess associations between each dependent variables and QoL scores. The global health mean score ranges from 0 to 100; &gt;70 is considered a high level of functioning and &lt;70 is associated with lower level of symptomology based on previous studies. The OHIP-14 score ranges from 0 to 56; &lt;9 is considered better functioning for oral health.

Results: Among 262 oropharyngeal cancer survivors, 84.0% were male, 74.7% were sixty and older at cancer diagnosis, 21.8% were overweight (µ=26.5 (sd=4.9) kg/m2). More than half of participants had seen a dentist within the last 6 months (65.8%) and were former smokers (51.1%). The global QoL means scores for 1996-2000, 2001-2005, 2006-2010, and 2011-2016 were 77.5 (sd=16.3), 73.4 (sd=17.6), 67.3 (sd=24.1), and 73.4 (sd=20.4). Both the global QoL mean score (72.0 (sd=20.8)) and the OHIP-14 mean score (13.2 (sd=13.9)) were fairly high. Similarly, individual QoL physical, role, emotional, cognitive, and social mean scores from the QLQ-30 were also fairly high, ranging from 77.8 to 85.9. From the EORTC H&N35 symptomatology scale, the highest symptom related mean scores were observed for weight gain (85.8 (sd=35.0)), pain-killers use (64.4 (sd=48.0)), and dry mouth (61.7 (sd=35.6)). Higher global QoL mean scores were seen with higher education (postgraduate vs technical school, 81.9 (sd=19.3) vs 67.9 (sd=22.4)), higher income ($100,000+ vs less than $25,00, 76.4 (sd=17.3) vs 60.2 (sd=24.6)), younger age (&lt;40 vs &gt;70, 87.5 (sd=17.7) vs 71.9 (sd=2.6)), and BMI (&lt;18.5 vs 18.5-24.9, 45.8 (sd=26.7) vs 74.8 (sd=20.2)).

Conclusion: Global QoL improvement suggests adaptability to a new normal among this group of U.S. oropharyngeal cancer survivors when compared to previous studies which were largely based on a shorter follow-up time. Oral health-related quality of life was marginally poor in our study, suggesting needed improvement in patient management overtime, with worse improvement in physical discomfort and physical disability scores across all demographic patient characteristics except with distant stage and recurrence.

Citation Format: Alzina Koric, Marcus Monroe, Seungmin Kim, Esther Chang, Qingqing Hu, Siqi Hu, Mia Hashibe. Quality of life among oropharyngeal cancer survivors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 901.