Risk factors for head and neck cancer

Risk factors for head and neck cancer MUDr. Kateřina Licková, MBA We focused on the research of risk factors for head and neck cancer (HNC) and the aim of our study was to confirm the influence of known external risk factors (alcohol and smoking) and further correlate the overall clinical and socio-economic status of the patient with HNC. In contrast to previous studies, we confirmed the results of the study with a control group of patients with other heterogeneous oncological diagnoses (OOD). The research was carried out in the years 2015 to 2019 at the Radiotherapy and Oncology Clinic of the Royal Vinohrady University Hospital (FNKV) in Prague. The study included 200 patients with ZNHK and 200 patients with OOD. For the research of risk factors, we used a non-standardized questionnaire focused on socio-economic and behavioral risk factors. We used the Czech reading test (CRT) to measure premorbid intellect, the visual analog scale VAS (from 0 to 10 cm) to determine the quality of life, the GAD-7 questionnaire to detect anxiety, the BDI-II self-assessment questionnaire to detect depression and and clinical data were obtained retrospectively from medical records and from the UNIS database of the hospital system. The results of our work confirmed that cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption are the main...