The effect of glutamine and arginine-enriched nutritional support on quality of life in head and neck cancer patients treated with IMRT.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

Oral mucositis and esophagitis are common acute toxicities of radiotherapy (RT) for head and neck cancer (HNC). In order to decrease the rates of these toxicities, we compared quality of life in HNC patients that did and did not receive a glutamine and arginine-enriched solution (GAES) during RT.

METHODS

A total of 29 patients received intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT); 15 used GAES b.i.d. during the treatment, and a matched cohort of 14 patients did not. Patients were administered the EORTC QLQ-C30, QLQ-H&N35 and QLQ-OES18 questionnaires on the 1st, 15th, and last days of IMRT.

RESULTS

The global health status, functional and symptom scale scores were similar in both groups on the 1st day of IMRT. On the 15th and last days, the scores of social functions (p = 0.01 and p = 0.012), pain (p = 0.002 and p = 0.002), appetite (p = 0.01 and p = 0.02), dry mouth (p = 0.001 and p = 0.03), sticky saliva (p = 0.003 and p = 0.04), trouble with taste (p = 0.001 and p = 0.03), trouble with social eating (p = 0.004 and p = 0.006), and swallowing problems (p = 0.002 and p = 0.046) were significantly worse in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

Quality of life is negatively affected by IMRT; however, use of GAES may mediate this negative effect.