Page 64 - Read Online

Topic: State of the Art in the Management of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Current prognosis and quality of life

following surgical treatment for head and

neck squamous cell carcinoma

Cristina Hernández-Vila

Department of Oral and Maxillofacial-Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital Infanta Cristina, 06080 Badajoz, Spain.
Correspondence Author: Dr. Cristina Hernández-Vila, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Hospital Infanta
Cristina, Avenida de Elvas s/n, 06080 Badajoz, Spain. E-mail: cristinahernandezvila@hotmail.es

Dr. Cristina Hernández-Vila, M.D., has studied Medicine in the University of Extremadura
until 2009. She passed the public exam to get a position in the Maxillofacial Residency Program
of the University Hospital Infanta Cristina in Badajoz, Spain where she was training her
surgical skills. Additionally, she made stays overseas to complete her training in head and neck
reconstruction, craniofacial surgery and dentofacial deformities. Nowadays she is working as
a staff member at the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the University Hospital
Infanta Cristina in Badajoz, Spain.

ABSTRACT
Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is one of the most common cancers in the
world with a close relation with some risk factor like, tobacco, alcohol consumption and more
recently, with human papilloma virus infection. A review of the literature about actual prognosis
and quality of life in HNSCC has been done analysing the results of surgical treatment and their
impact on the quality of life of patients. Despite the elevated incidence of HNSCC, the survival
rate has increased considerably over the last years thanks to the development of new surgical
techniques, such as, microvascular reconstruction or transoral robotic surgery and the most
accurate adjuvant radiochemotherapy. Even in bad prognosis cases, there are many options to
take into account not only with curative expectation, even, keeping in mind the preservation of
the quality of life of patients. Due to the improvement of the prognosis, the interest of surgeons has
been focused on preserve the aesthetics, functional and psychosocial aspect of patients without a
worsening of the main objective which is the curative result. Although prognosis of HNSCC has
improved, further studies are necessary to understand the behaviour in every case and determine
how the impact on the quality of life can be a useful tool to individualize the therapies.

Key words:
Carcinoma; squamous cell of the head and neck; head and neck neoplasms/mortality; quality of
life; oral cancer

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License, which allows
Access this article online others to remix, tweak and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the
author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Quick Response Code:
Website:
http://www.parjournal.net For reprints contact: service@oaepublish.com
How to cite this article: Hernández-Vila C. Current prognosis
and quality of life following surgical treatment for head and
DOI:
10.20517/2347-9264.2016.20 neck squamous cell carcinoma. Plast Aesthet Res 2016;3:203-10.
Received: 04-04-2016; Accepted: 27-05-2016
© 2016 Plastic and Aesthetic Research | Published by OAE Publishing Inc. 203