Patient Preferences in Making Treatment Decisions in Patients With Stage I-IVA Oropharyngeal Cancer

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Determine the stability of Head and Neck Priorities Scale (HNPS) ranking between pre- and
post-treatment assessments.

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. Use patient-interviews to refine and modify the HNPS for use in a larger scale trial.

II. Pilot the Head and Neck Patient Outcomes Survey (HNPOS) as a potential tool to identify
priorities most important to quality-of-life outcomes.

III. Use the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy - Head and Neck (FACT-H&N) and
EurolQoL-5D to determine the validity of the HNPOS.

OUTLINE:

Patients participate in a 45-minute interview comprising assessment of priorities and
quality of life at baseline, 1, 6, and 12 months.

Inclusion Criteria:

- Treatment naïve American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage I-IVa squamous cell
carcinoma of the head and neck with no definitive evidence of metastatic disease

- Sufficient vision, writing, and communication ability to complete the interviews and
assessment tool

- Signed informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

- Patients who are enrolled in other head and neck cancer treatment protocols are
permitted to participate in this study if a) the other protocol permits this and b)
the other protocol does not utilize the HNPS

- Patients who have previously undergone cancer treatment or are presently undergoing
additional cancer treatments

- Patients who have already undergone unsuccessful curative-intent surgery on their
head and neck cancer

- Patients, who have had a major surgery (defined as requiring general anesthesia but
not including tonsillectomy, neck dissection, or panendoscopy [triple endoscopy or
examination under general anesthesia]), or significant traumatic injury within 4
weeks of the study; patients who have not recovered from the side effects of any of
the above surgeries

- Patients unwilling to or unable to comply with the protocol

- Patients unable to communicate with the interviewer