Grant: Terry Fox New Investigator Award

Nearly 10% of all cancers diagnosed every year arise in the head and neck, ranking 7th globally, with a sustained rapid rise. Head and neck cancer (HNC) leads to the most prominent symptom burden when compared to all other cancers . These cancers are highly fatal and also are associated with high caregiver burden. While some of the usual treatments for HNC improve quality and quantity of life, some are ineffective and inefficient in the real world, negatively affecting the patient's journey. Many patients are incurable at the time of their diagnosis or become incurable within two years. Further negatively impacting the patient journey, there is a high rate of emergency room visits and unplanned hospitalizations during and after treatment. This makes HNC one of the costliest cancers to treat and a very important cancer to study from a health system perspective. Our study aims to use healthcare data collected from a cohort of HNC patients in Ontario to understand the patterns of care in this population. In addition, this study will use the data and directly engage patients, caregivers, physicians, and policy-makers to set priorities to improve HNC care. This study will determine how patients live following treatment, how much treatment costs and if there are better ways to support patients during treatment. We will pay careful attention to the cancer care provided to patients who may be vulnerable to experiencing worse outcomes, such as the elderly, those with a mental illness, recent immigrants to Canada and those living in rural communities. More specifically, we will conduct a systematic analysis of clinical, economic, and patient-reported outcomes for HNC in Ontario (2007-2018). We will engage a group of patients, caregivers, healthcare providers, and policy-makers to interact with the research team and provide ongoing feedback on the project, and how to identify strategies to incorporate the information derived from the analysis into clinical practice.