RESUMO
A common side effect of managing head and neck cancer is trismus, which devastates patients' quality of life. The purpose of this study was to investigate prophylactic exercise interventions for preventing trismus and difficulty in mouth opening in head and neck cancer. Five databases were searched for randomized controlled trials. Network meta-analysis was performed with risk ratio (RR) or mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence interval (CI). This study finally included 11 randomized controlled trials (n = 805). Trismus risk in patients who received exercise with phone call follow up (E + P) was significantly lower than those received usual care (RR = 0.42; 95% CI: 0.29 to 0.61) and exercise alone (RR = 0.33; 95% CI: 0.18 to 6.22). Mouth opening in usual care was significantly lower than in the tri-integrated strategy group (MD = 15.22; 95% CI: 8.88 to 21.56). Exercise is recommended for preserving mouth opening distance in patients with head and neck cancer. Tri-integrated strategies could be an effective method for preventing trismus.
RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: The reliability and validity of the Voice-Related Quality of Life (V-RQOL) measure has been conducted in languages other than Mandarin. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the reliability and validity of the Mandarin version of the V-RQOL (MV-RQOL) questionnaire. METHODS: The MV-RQOL was completed by a total of 57 participants, including 27 individuals with voice disorders (VD) and 30 individuals without voice disorders (NVD). Statistical analyses were carried out to evaluate the validity, reliability, reproducibility, and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve was also derived. RESULTS: Statistical analyses demonstrated the MV-RQOL has strong internal consistency. The test-retest reliability was found to be high as well. There was a significant difference between the groups with and without voice disorders. The NVD group had higher scores compared with the VD group for the overall MV-RQOL score and for the 2 domains. In addition, the scores between males and females showed no significant differences. A significant difference was found between the MV-RQOL scores of individuals who defined their voices as good and very good, and those who defined their voices as poor and fair. Area under the curve value from ROC curve was found to be 0.994. The optimal cutoff value was found to be 85.00, with sensitivity of 96.7% and specificity of 96.3%. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results, it can be suggested that the MV-RQOL measure is a reliable and valid self-assessment tool, that discriminates well between patients with and without voice disorders, in the Taiwanese population.