P336 - POSITIVE CORRELATION BETWEEN MEDICAL NUTRITION THERAPY AND OVERALL SURVIVAL IN HEAD AND NECK CANCER PATIENTS RECEIVING BIOLOGICAL THERAPY

P336

POSITIVE CORRELATION BETWEEN MEDICAL NUTRITION THERAPY AND OVERALL SURVIVAL IN HEAD AND NECK CANCER PATIENTS RECEIVING BIOLOGICAL THERAPY

A. Molnar^1,*, E. Pálfi¹, B. Belak², C. Blasszauer ³, D. Reibl³, I. Komka³, J. Lövey⁴

¹Doctoral School of Health Sciences, Semmelweis University, Faculty of Health Sciences, , ²Doctoral School of Health Sciences, Semmelweis University, ³MedicalScan Ltd, Budapest, Hungary, ⁴Department of Oncology, Oslo University Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Centre, Oslo , Norway

Rationale: Previously our working group showed positive correlation between survival and medical nutrition therapy (MNT) in head and neck cancer patients (HNC). In our subsequent study with expanded data, we examined the relationship between MNT and survival in patients receiving biological therapy.

Methods: The data of this retrospective, analytical, cohort study was collected from electronic healthcare records from the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Management. The data of recurrent/metastatic HNC patients receiving cetuximab biological therapy in the period between 2018 and 2022 was used. "RStudio" software was employed to extract data and to perform statistical analyses. Survival was tested by Kaplan-Meier method with log-rank test, and Cox regression analysis.

Results: In the examined period only 214 (22.9%) patients received MNT out of 936 new HNC patients in biological therapy. We found that two-year overall survival was significantly better 47.7% vs 39.2% (n=214 vs n=722; HR: 1.344 (95% CI: 1.094-1.651) log-rank test p=0.00492) of patients who received MNT versus those who did not, during biological therapy.

Conclusion: Our study has highlighted that in Hungary MNT prescription for HNC cancer patients receiving biological therapy is not optimal. Our main finding is that we showed a positive correlation between the MNT and overall survival in patients receiving biological therapy.

Disclosure of Interest: None declared