ASO Author Reflections: Head and Neck Cancer Surgery—How Long Can it Wait?

Excerpt

“How soon can I have my surgery? Can my surgery really wait 3 weeks? Is this a fast-growing cancer?” These are perhaps some of the most common questions oncologic surgeons encounter. Time to treatment initiation in head and neck cancer is increasing and is associated with worse survival, although prior studies have consisted of cohorts receiving surgical and nonsurgical treatment.1,2 This paper provides important data that answers the clinically important question of how and when surgical delay impacts patient outcomes. In this paper, we present the time point at which surgical delay affects survival, investigate the interaction between surgical delay and tumor subsite to assess whether certain tumor subsites are more susceptible to poor survival with extended wait times, and, in the oropharynx, we investigate the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) status as it pertains to surgical wait times and survival.3 …