Die Behandlung von Patienten mit Kopf-Hals-Karzinomen stellt aufgrund unerwünschter
und insbesondere schwerer unerwünschter Komplikationen und Nebenwirkungen oft eine
Herausforderung dar. Kontinuierliche Anstrengungen sind daher erforderlich, um den
Gesundheitszustand der Patienten vor Therapie und unter Therapie zu optimieren, so
wenig Toxizität wie möglich zu erzeugen und einheitliche therapeutische Standards
zu gewährleisten.
Abstract
Since treatment of patients with head and neck cancer is often challenging due to
adverse events and especially severe adverse events, continuous efforts are required
optimize patients’ health status before therapy in order to achieve as little toxicity
as possible, while providing the same therapeutic standards especially for elderly
individuals, who statistically represent the largest group of patients with head and
neck cancer. Modern prehabilitation concepts, that primarily aim at optimizing the
nutritional status of patients before beginning of treatment and during treatment,
appear to be of particular interest in order to adequately meet this challenge. In
this context, both poor nutritional status and frailty have been established as well
known risk factors and predictors of poor outcome in patients with head and neck cancer.
Assessment of the nutritional status, pretherapeutic evaluation of frailty and the
associated potential optimization of the patient’s general health status is barely
implemented in German head and neck cancer centers, but should be included in the
multidisciplinary treatment of head and neck cancer patients in order to reduce the
rate of severe adverse events in particular. This article is therefore intended to
contribute to a better understanding of the importance of pretherapeutic assessment
of frailty, nutritional status and its optimization, as well as further explain the
concept of prehabilitation in head and neck oncology.
Schlüsselwörter
Frailty - Kopf-Hals-Onkologie - Prähabilitation - Ernährungsstatus
Keywords
frailty - head and neck cancer - prehabilitation - nutrition status - malnutrition
