台耳醫誌

BACKGROUND: Patients with head and neck cancer usually experience different degrees of dysphagia after cancer treatment, which usually includes operation or concurrent chemotherapy (CCRT). The goal of this study is to evaluate whether swallowing therapy is beneficial for oropharyngeal cancer after disease-targeted CCRT and treatment including surgery.
METHODS: Data from 2014 to 2021 were collected from a medical center in New Taipei City, Taiwan. Patients were divided into two groups, oropharyngeal cancer treated with only CCRT and those whose treatment includes surgery (cancer treatment including surgery: 1. surgery alone 2. up-front surgery + adjuvant radiotherapy or CCRT 3. definitive CCRT with salvage surgery). They were divided into two particular groups as we believe there exists a difference in post-treatment structural defect between invasive and non-invasive cancer treatment. Functional oral intake scores (FOIS) were assessed before cancer treatment, after cancer treatment, 1-month post-swallowing therapy, 2 months post-swallowing therapy, and 6 months post-swallowing therapy in two groups. One way repeated measure analyses of variants (One way RM-ANOVA) were used to test the hypothesis of whether swallowing therapy improved the symptoms of dysphagia in oropharyngeal cancer patients after two distinct types of cancer therapy.
RESULTS: A total of 44 patients were collected, 19 had cancer treatment including surgery, and 25 treated with CCRT only. In the CCRT only group, there were significant differences between post-CCRT score and 6 months post-swallowing therapy score (post-CCRT x̄ = 5.880; post 6 months ST x̄ = .083, p = 0.021). In the treatment including surgery group, there were significant differences seen in all recorded time points of swallowing therapy groups compared to baseline (post invasive treatment x̄ = 4.263; post 1 month ST x̄ = 4.824, p = 0.033; post 2 months ST x̄ = 4.929, p = 0.034, post 6 months ST x̄ = 6.083 p = 0.006).
CONCLUSION: Swallowing therapy showed improvements by FOIS score in patients with oropharyngeal cancer after cancer-targeted CCRT and surgical intervention. (J Taiwan Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 2026; 60:28-36)