Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-25-2021
Abstract
Head and neck cancer (HNC) treatment-related morbidity can be detrimental to quality of life (QOL). Myosteatosis is associated with poor QOL in multiple cancers. If predictive of poor QOL trajectories, myosteatosis would be a tool for clinicians to determine which patients may require additional support during treatment. The purpose of this study was to determine if pretreatment myosteatosis is associated with a poor QOL trajectory following treatment completion.
METHODS: In a retrospective cohort design, myosteatosis was determined from pretreatment CT scans. Both physical and global QOL score was assessed through patient interview on follow-up appointment. Demographic, cancer-specific, and social covariates were collected, reported, and considered as potential confounders.
RESULTS: The population of 163 patients was mostly male (82.2%) and white (91.4%) with oropharyngeal cancer (55.8%). Males with myosteatosis had a physical QOL score 46.84 points lower at one-year following treatment completion (p = 0.01) than those with normal muscle density (p = 0.01). Males with myosteatosis averaged 57.57 points lower at one-year post-treatment (p = 0.01) in global QOL scores.
CONCLUSIONS: Over one year following completion of treatment, patients with myosteatosis reported worse physical and global QOL scores than patients with normal muscle density.
Recommended Citation
Shaver, Amy L; Noyes, Katia; Ochs-Balcom, Heather M; Wilding, Gregory; Ray, Andrew D; Ma, Sung Jun; Farrugia, Mark; Singh, Anurag K; and Platek, Mary E, "A Retrospective Cohort Study of Myosteatosis and Quality of Life in Head and Neck Cancer Patients." (2021). Department of Medical Oncology Faculty Papers. Paper 151.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/medoncfp/151
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
PubMed ID
34503093
Language
English
Comments
This article is the author's final published version in Cancers, Volume 13, Issue 17, August 2021, Article number 4283
The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers13174283.
Copyright © 2021 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).