Skip to main content
AAO-HNSF 2023 Annual Meeting & OTO Experience Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Back
Rate ePoster

Head and Neck Surgery

(435) Role of Caregiver Support in Head and Neck Cancer Patients

Monday, October 2, 2023
2:45 PM – 3:45 PM East Coast USA Time
Disclosure(s):
Tahsin Bari, n/a: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Joshua Joseph Kain, MD: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Nadia G. Mohyuddin, MD, FACS: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Minhui (Laura) Kim, MD, MSc: No relevant relationships to disclose.


Introduction: Head and neck cancer is associated with significant morbidity given the tumor location and treatment involved, often impacting one’s ability to communicate and quality of life. Informal caregiver support is known to have implications on a patient’s long-term outcomes and quality of life. The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of caregiver support in patients undergoing surgical treatment for head and neck cancer.

Methods: A retrospective review was performed. Head and neck cancer patients who were seen by social work following surgery were included in the analysis and separated into two groups based on the presence of a caregiver other than self. Patients with precancerous lesions or incomplete records were excluded from the study.

Results: 43 patients were included with 10 in the caregiver absent group and 33 in the caregiver present group. There was no significant difference in terms of age, race or gender between groups (p>0.05). 90.0% patients (n=9) without a caregiver presented with stage III/IV disease compared to 72.7% of patients (n=24) with a caregiver. 50% (n=5) of the caregiver absent group had a history of depression/anxiety, but only 60% of those patients received medication. By contrast, 21.2% of the caregiver present group (n=7) had a history of depression/anxiety with 85.7% of those patients on medication. 30% of caregiver absent group (n=3) had surgery for recurrent disease versus 21.2% in the caregiver present group (n=7). 50.0% of patients (n=5) in the caregiver absent group had a prior history of cancer compared to 21.2% (n=7) in the caregiver present group.

Conclusions: Lack of caregiver support may be associated with presentation at an advanced stage of head and neck cancer and with a history of comorbid or recurrent disease, signifying that care for these patients needs to be further optimized. Resources for these patients may potentially be directed towards closer management of comorbid psychiatric conditions and monitoring for recurrent or second primary malignancies. Further study is needed with larger patient populations to confirm these findings.