The following is a summary of “Decisional regret, symptom burden, and quality of life following transoral robotic surgery for oropharyngeal cancer,” published in the November 2023 issue of Oncology by Kwon, et al.
The oncologic control of transoral robotic surgery (TORS) is comparable to that of radiation, and it has the potential to enhance the quality of life (QOL) while reducing the amount of regret patients report having about their decisions.
TORS patients with early-stage oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma who completed the Decision Regret Scale (DRS), the M. D. Anderson Dysphagia Inventory (MDADI), and the University of Washington Quality of Life (UW-QOL) were included in a cross-sectional research that was conducted between the years 2016 and 2021. There was a median duration of 1.8 years between completing the questionnaire and the therapy (interquartile range: 1.4–3.3, range: 1.0–5.6). 84.6% of the 65 patients showed either no or moderate regret over their choice. A correlation was seen between regret and MDADI (τavg = −0.23, P < 0.001) and UW-QOL (τavg = −0.27, P < 0.001). However, regret was not connected with clinical parameters or the administered adjuvant therapy.
A higher MDADI was shown to be connected with an older age, while a lower UW-QOL was found to be associated with a multi-site operation and a shorter duration of surveying. When taken as a whole, the TORS cohort showed relatively little remorse over their decisions. However, choice regret was shown to be connected with a lower quality of life and worse swallowing. It was the case even if clinic demographics and extra adjuvant medications did not affect DRS scores.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1368837523002336
