Quality of life for head and neck cancer patients--has treatment planning altered?

Abstract

In the last decade quality of life data has emerged as a valid outcome measure and a means of capturing the patient's perspective following head and neck cancer. This view can be different to what doctors and other members of the multidisciplinary team might think. Also this data can be more discriminative than other outcome measures such as morbidity and objective measurements of dysfunction. In this chapter, the role of quality of life in the treatment decision process is discussed and examples of how QOL data have helped shaped clinical practice are given.