Survival from localized head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is better than for many cancers. Five-year survival rates range from around 50 to 80%. This puts the quality of life (QOL) of these patients at the forefront.
One of the most common and significant side effects of HNSCC patients is dysphagia or difficulty to swallow, which may persist because of permanent xerostomia or dry mouth.
A fortunately not-hard-to-swallow QOL questionnaire and the “gold standard” to assess for dysphagia is called the MD Anderson Dysphagia Inventory or MDADI for short. As shown above, it contains 20 questions that are rated on a 5-point scale for patients to answer. Dysphagia is scored from 0 to 100, where a higher score represents a better function.
The MDADI is a centerpiece of the randomized Phase 2b clinical trial called KEVLARx where lead EpicentRx small molecule, RRx-001 (nibrozetone), is given 4 times as a pretreatment before the start of the chemotherapy agent, cisplatin, and radiation (“4 before and then no more”) to prevent the development of common side effects like severe oral mucositis and dysphagia.
Fingers crossed 🤞that RRx-001-pretreated patients develop such little dysphagia that “Who’s your MDADI?” becomes their catchphrase.