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Psycho-oncologic Aspects of Head and Neck Cancer Patients

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Head and Neck Cancer

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Abstract

Head and neck cancer, especially squamous cell carcinoma, represents a worldwide health-care problem. Behavioral and lifestyle risk factors associated to deleterious social environment, treatment-related physical aftermaths, and psychosocial stressors such as disfigurement, stigma, illness intrusiveness, marital impact, and impaired quality of life are commonly associated with head and neck cancer. This can generate psychosocial problems, sexuality concerns, psychological distress, and psychiatric disorders. All these psychopathological complications can interfere with optimal outcomes in terms of patients’ compliance to their care and survival. Therefore, all these several psychosocial problematics open some tremendous challenges for multidisciplinary health-care teams in terms of emotional distress screening, referral to mental health or psycho-oncologic team, and psychological and pharmacological intervention proposal.

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  1. Psycho-oncology Team, Centre Oscar Lambret, 3 rue Frédéric Combemale, Lille, 59020, France

    Michel Reich MD

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  1. Department of Radio-Oncology, Genolier Swiss Medical Network, Genolier, Switzerland

    Jacques Bernier

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Reich, M. (2016). Psycho-oncologic Aspects of Head and Neck Cancer Patients. In: Bernier, J. (eds) Head and Neck Cancer. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27601-4_50

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27601-4_50

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