Effects Of Radiotherapy On The Airway Assessment For Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients

【Objective】Conducted a preliminary study for the effects of Radiotherapy on the airway assessment in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients and provided a reference for clinical.【Methods】We conducted a cross-sectional study on the outpatients of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Shanghai Cancer Hospital from February 2009 to March 2009.Patients had received radiation therapy and followed up 1 year or more after the end of treatment belonged to group A.And those who who had been made a definite diagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma but without radiation therapy belonged to group B.Two groups of patients were analyzed with:(1)General demographic information;(2)Bony anatomy and joint activity;(3)Mallampati classification;(4)Upper lip bite test. SPSS15.0 software packages carried out the use of statistics.Continuous variables were expressed as the mean for those with a normal distribution, and as the median.Discrete variables were expressed as percentages. Paired-Samples T-test was used to compare continuous variables,the Mann-Whitney U-test to compare continuous variables with non-normal distribution,and the chi-squared test to compare proportions.All statistical tests were two-tailed and the threshold of statistical significance was P＜0.05.【Results】(1)60 cases were collected in this study,30 of them belonged to group A,others belonged to group B;(2)There was no significant difference between tow groups of patients in the gender,age,height, weight and BMI;(3)There was no significant difference between tow groups of patients in mouth opening,thyromental distance,mandible-sternum distance and the ratio of height and thyromental distance.But group A was significantly lower than group B in the neck upward degrees(P=0.004); (4)There was no significant difference between tow groups of patients in Mallampati classification;(5)Group A had significantly more scores in the upper lip bite test than group B(P=0.008).【Conclusion】(1)Radiotherapy had an impact on the airway assessment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients;(2)After radiotherapy,the neck upward degrees of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients were decreased,and the upper lip bite test scores were increased at the same time.