X. Long1, J. Guo2, J. Shi2, and J. Zang1; 1Department of Radiation Oncology, Xijing Hospital, Air Force Medical University, Xian, China, 2Department of Radiation Oncology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University., Xian, ShanXi, China
Purpose/Objective(s): Radiation therapy is an important treatment for patients with head and neck cancer. Due to the influence of cancer itself and the damage of normal tissue caused by radiation therapy, patients often experience various side effects such as dysphagia, oral mucositis, pain and dry mouth. These symptoms not only decrease the patient quality of life, but also lead to negative effects for patient prognosis. Therefore, how to effectively manage and control these symptoms is an important issue in patient with head and neck tumors receiving radiotherapy. The new symptom management model based on (Patient-reported Outcomes, PRO) can monitor the status of patients in real time by self-reporting symptom information, and discover abnormal symptoms in time and deal with them according to preset warning values. Several studies showed that PRO-based symptom management improved patient clinical outcomes, reduced complications, and increased patient satisfaction. We hypothesized that the model based on PRO-active symptom management could effectively reduce patient complications, improve patient quality of life, and increase patient satisfaction. Materials/
Methods: This study was a prospective randomized controlled clinical study. Patients with head and neck tumor receiving radiotherapy were randomly divided into two groups: PRO-based symptom management group (intervention group) and usual care group (control group). A total of 110 patients with aged 18-70 years old were planned to enrolled in this study. All patients received intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), with a total dose of 60-66Gy. Patients in intervention group fill in a scale one week before radiotherapy and every week after radiotherapy to actively report their symptoms, functional status, quality of life and other information. The system automatically monitors the extent of the patients symptoms and judges their severity. When the preset score of target symptoms (fatigue, dry mouth, decreased appetite, oral mucosal irritation, pain, etc.) exceed the warning value (=4 points), the study nurse will report to the doctor, and then the doctor will take the appropriate symptom intervention measures for the patient according to the warning symptom score. In the control group, patients only receive routine care and symptom monitoring without symptom monitoring. The primary endpoint was to compare patients complication between the two groups during radiotherapy, and the secondary endpoints included grade grade of symptom severity and quality of life. Results: Inapplicability Conclusion: Inapplicability
