A multicenter randomized trial for quality of life evaluation by non-invasive intelligent tools during post-curative treatment follow-up for head and neck cancer

Depending on disease stage, head and neck cancer (HNC) can be cured either with a single modality or with multimodal treatments, consisting of various combinations of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Despite treatment with curative intent, loco-regional recurrences and/or distant relapses are frequent. Moreover, these therapeutic approaches result in significant acute toxicities and late sequelae. Therefore, quality of life (QoL) is often impaired in these survivors. It is known that QoL is a prognostic factor because it is related to overall survival in cancer patients and to loco-regional control in HNC patients. The adoption of mobile technologies of common use (i.e. embedded into standard mobile phones) for behavior reconstruction and linkage of behavior modifications to quality of life indicators, and the realization of predictive models for quality of life modifications will allow seamless and unobtrusive data capture over time, making the execution of clinical investigations more precise and less burdensome as compared to standard (manual) data capture. The main aim of the present study is to reduce and to anticipate, with the use of the non-invasive Big data for quality of life (BD4QoL) platform, the proportion of HNC survivors experiencing a clinically meaningful reduction in QoL.