Blog 16: 2-Hour Meeting Answer #2

Content:

1.  What is your essential question?
My essential question is "What is the best way to treat head and neck cancer in adults?"
2.  What is your second answer to your essential question (write your second answer in a complete sentence)? My second answer to my essential question is that the patient receive follow-up care after they have completed treatment.
3.  What are three details to support or justify your second answer (details are examples or facts)?
Follow-up care is extremely important after a procedure,  especially if the patient experiences head and neck cancer.

• Follow-up care is important because it helps to identify changes in health. The purpose of follow-up care is to check for recurrence (the return of cancer in the primary site) or metastasis (the spread of cancer to another part of the body).  www.cancer.gov
• Follow-up care visits are also important to help in the prevention or early detection of other types of cancer, address ongoing problems due to cancer or its treatment, and check for physical and psychosocial effects that may develop months to years after treatment ends. www.cancer.gov
• The frequency and nature of follow-up care is individualized based on the type of cancer, the type of treatment received, and the person’s overall health, including possible treatment-related problems. In general, people return to the doctor for follow-up appointments every 3 to 4 months during the first 2 to 3 years after treatment, and once or twice a year after that.   www.cancer.gov

4.  What source helped you prove this answer is justified for your essential question?
The source that helped me prove this answer was one of my research articles, number 38, which is "Esophageal pathology in patients after treatment for head and neck cancer", by the journal Otolaryngology- Head and Neck Surgery. This article illustrated the importance of having follow-up care because of the fact that some patients could develop serious medical conditions after they receive treatment for cancer. In this article, the majority of patients had oropharyngeal cancer, and after undergoing treatment, they developed esophageal problems.  The authors recommended that the patients needed to be diagnosed quickly after the treatment because the physician has to take into consideration how the patient feels when performing simple acts, such as swallowing. The physician has to perform tests to check if everything is functioning normally after a major procedure. The authors also highlighted that the results must not be based on patient symptoms alone; it is necessary for the doctor to perform routine examinations so the problem could be detected early, and there are no other complications with the patient.

5.  What do you plan to study next with your second answer and why?
What I plan to study next with my second answer is how doctors can provide the best follow-up care for the patient, depending on the type of cancer and the treatment that they have. By doing research about my second answer, I can see if follow-up care is one of the ways that the patient can receive the best treatment. I also want to learn the different ways that can follow-up care can have an impact on the patients. For example, if the patient were to develop psychosocial effects, how would the physician outline the care needed for the patient.