October 24, 2007 – Researchers for the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) have found that emotional well-being is not an independent factor in predicting the survival time of patients with head and neck cancer.
The details of their research appear in the Dec. 1 issue of CANCER.
The investigators examined survival and quality of life data from two large RTOG multicenter clinical trials. Patients enrolled in the trials completed a baseline measure of quality of life that included an Emotional Well-Being subscale. The combined data set of approximately 1100 patients and 650 deaths allowed the researchers to make correlations between survival and emotional well-being, as well several other more predictive factors, on one of the largest pools of patients with uniformity of cancer site, treatment, quality of care, and quality of life reporting.
For more information: www.rtog.org