Patient-reported quality of life outcomes following treatment for oral cancer.

Patient-reported quality of life (QoL) outcomes have the potential to assist clinicians in providing individually tailored treatment decisions. QoL assessments were collected prospectively for 168 consecutive patients treated for oral cancer between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2014 using the University of Washington Quality of Life Questionnaire. Patients were followed up for 18 months post-treatment. Sub-group analyses were performed using paired t-tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to compare the effects of adjunctive chemoradiotherapy, type of bone resection, and methods of soft and hard tissue flap reconstruction. The greatest statistically significant reduction in QoL for all oral cavity sub-sites was found following the treatment of floor of mouth tumours (-18.9%, P=0.018). Laser excision for matched patient cohorts resulted in improved resultant QoL compared to other excision techniques (P=0.0002). No significant difference in QoL was found when radial forearm and anterolateral thigh flaps were matched, or when fibula and scapula flaps were matched. These findings support the use of laser excision and the avoidance of postoperative radiotherapy if curative intent and survival outcomes are maintained.

Performance comparison of NE213 detectors for their application in moisture measurement

The pulse shape discrimination (PSD) characteristic and neutron detection efficiency of NE213 detectors have been measured for their application in moisture measurements using 252Cf and 241Am-Be sources. In PSD studies, neutron peak to valley (Pn/V) ratio and figure of merit M were measured at four different bias values for cylindrical 50, 125 and 250 mm diameter NE213 detectors. The result of this study has shown that better PSD performance with the NE213 detector can be achieved with a smaller volume detector in conjunction with a neutron source with smaller gamma-ray/neutron ratio. The neutron detection efficiency of the 125 mm diameter NE213 detector for 241Am-Be and 252Cf source spectra was determined at 0.85, 1.25 and 1.75 MeV bias energies using the experimental neutron detection efficiency data of the same detector over 0.1-10 MeV energy range. Due to different energy spectra of the 241Am-Be and 252Cf sources, integrated efficiency of the 125 mm diameter NE213 detector for the two sources shows bias dependence. At smaller bias, 252Cf source has larger efficiency but as the bias is increased, the detector has larger efficiency for 241Am-Be source. This study has revealed that NE213 detector has better performance (such as PSD and neutron detection efficiency) in simultaneous detection of neutron and gamma-rays in moisture measurements, if it is used in conjunction with 241Am-Be source at higher detector bias.