ArticleFrontiers in oncology2025
Long-term nutrition therapy leads to survival benefit in head and neck cancer patients receiving targeted or immunotherapy. A retrospective cohort study with real-world data.
Article in Frontiers in oncology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Digital Nutritional Care in Oncology: Opportunities to Enhance Quality of Life and Support Patient-Centered Care.Cancers · 2026Review
- Mapping Nutritional Assessment and Management in Oncology: Challenges and Perspectives from a Regional Survey.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Association Between Nutritional Status and Extranodal Extension of Lymph Node Metastases in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Cancers.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Editorial: Integrating nutrition in cancer therapy: approaches to improve patient outcomes and survival.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Nutritional status is one of the most important prognostic factors of survival in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer (R/M HNC), and it can be positively influenced by medical nutrition therapy (MNT). To evaluate the impact of MNT, we collected Real-World Data on its use in R/M HNC patients receiving molecular targeted therapy (TT) or immunotherapy (IT) and examined the correlation between survival and duration of MNT. Methods: This retrospective, analytical, cohort study utilized data extracted from the electronic health records of the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Management. In total, data from 1,660 HNC patients treated between 2018 and 2023 were used. Statistical analysis was conducted using the Kaplan-Meier method, log-rank test, and Cox regression analysis. Survival was assessed over a follow-up period of 730 days. Results: During the study period, 993 of 1,660 patients (55.9%) aged over 18 received molecular TT, and 667 (40.1%) patients received IT. Patients were categorized into three groups based on whether they received MNT during treatment and the duration of MNT. When comparing these groups, we found that patients who received MNT for more than 6 months had better survival in both the targeted therapy group (HR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.36-0.69, p<0.001) and the immunotherapy group (HR = 0.4, 95% CI = 0.22-0.72, p=0.002). Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a positive correlation between long-term use of MNT - defined as treatment lasting more than six months - and overall survival (OS) in patients with R/M HNC receiving TT or IT. These findings underscore the importance of early identification of inadequate nutritional status, as well as the timely initiation and sustained application of MNT. The main limitation of the research is that it is based on retrospective data and from only one country. Results may vary in other countries due to differences in treatment protocols and the composition of nutritional formulas.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.