Quality Indicators in Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Systematic Review of the Literature

Introduction: Oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) has recently gained relevance owing to its increasing incidence in the population. We propose an evaluation of quality indicators for the management of OPC. Objectives: To analyze studies that evaluated the quality indicators of oropharyngeal cancer. Data Synthesis: The literature search was carried out in the following databases: Scielo, PubMed, EMBASE and LILACS, incorporating articles in Spanish and English that evaluated quality indicators in oropharyngeal cancer. A systematic review of the literature was conducted using descriptive analysis of the selected articles. Risk of bias analysis was performed using the ROBINS-E tool. Meta-analysis could not be performed because of the heterogeneity of data between the studies. Twelve studies were identified and four articles were selected, all of which had a moderate risk of bias. Two studies evaluated the use of high-quality care and demonstrated an improvement in overall survival (HR = 0.53 [0.39 - 0.71]). The remaining two studies evaluated the delay times between diagnosis and end of treatment, demonstrating that less than 48 and 78 days for patients with oropharyngeal cancer treated with chemoradiotherapy and surgery, respectively, showed improvement in overall survival (HR=1.24 (1.04-1.48) and HR=1.97 [1.39-2.78], respectively). Conclusions: Quality indicators can be used to homogenize care in patients with head and neck cancer. Currently, there are no accepted quality indicators for oropharyngeal cancer and studies on this topic are scarce. Further studies are needed to determine whether these indicators affect these populations.