Prescribing Pattern with Treatment Approaches and Mortality Risk Assessment Using the Charlson Comorbidity Index in Head and Neck Cancer

Background: Head and neck cancer (HNC) is a major health challenge in India, which is mainly caused by improper lifestyle and poor social economic status where its treatment choice is mainly dependent on the situation and comorbidity of the patient. Objective: To study prescribing pattern along with treatment modalities in HNC and Assessment of 10-year mortality risk using the Charlson Comorbidity Index in a survey-based study population Methodology: This study was conducted over a period of 6 months in the Oncology Department of Karnataka Medical College and Research Institute, Hubballi, Karnataka, India. Results: A total of 150 cases were evaluated among most of the patients were male and aged between 50 to 69 years. The tobacco chewing is considered a leading cause to get HNC and around 90% of patients are diagnosed at an advanced stage (III–IV) with stage IVA (53.33%) as the most common. From the study it has been observed that about 77% of patients were given with multimodal therapy, among this platinum-based chemotherapy regimen are more common, followed by radiotherapy (71.33%) used as an adjuvant therapy after surgery. A significant association was observed between stage of cancer and treatment modality (χ² = 63.783, p = 0.0013) and Charlson Comorbidity Index showed that about 12.7 % patients have lesser than 50 % predicated mortality risk. Conclusion: The report finds that stage at diagnosis significantly influences treatment selection, with advanced stages requiring multimodal platinum-based therapy and radiotherapy and with respect to mortality risk , age of the patient significantly influences the mortality risk were as gender has no significance with respect to mortality risk and the predominance of low CCI scores in 87.3% patients indicates a favourable prognostic profile, highlighting the value of combining stage-based treatment with comorbidity assessment for individualized clinical decision-making. Keywords: Head and neck cancer, prescribing pattern, treatment modalities, platinum-based chemotherapy, Charlson Comorbidity Index.