Assessment of Quality of life and Donor site morbidity following reconstruction in oral cancer patients-A prospective study

To evaluate the quality of life in oral cancer patients following resection and reconstruction with free flaps and to simultaneously evaluate the donor site morbidity in these patients.

A prospective study was conducted on 20 oral cancer patients who reported to our unit between 30–70 years who underwent resection and reconstruction with free flaps between july-2018 to june-2019. Quality of life was assessed using University of Washington Quality of Life Version 4 (UWQOL-4). The donor site morbidity was assessed for functional and sensory deficits using standard parameters up to one year postoperatively.

According to UWQOL-4, the best domains in our study was pain, anxiety, mood and taste sensation, the least scoring domains were chewing, saliva and appearance. Following radial forearm flap, a range of motion of wrist was compromised, however the muscle strength was preserved. The mean plantarflexion, dorsiflexion, isokinetic muscle strength and ankle strength was preserved following fibula flap harvesting. The mean range of motion of hip and knee was preserved following anterolateral thigh flap harvesting.

This questionnaire based study provides an effective medium to assess overall quality of life and simultaneous assessment of donor site morbidity provide an evidence based insight into social issues that patient’s face postoperatively.