In recent years, many institutions have tried to introduce clinical pathways for the treatment of head and neck cancer. The main purposes are reducing health care costs, establishing a standard treatment and improving risk management by emphasizing evidence-based intervention and reducing variability in care. For the patient, this trial is acceptable for meeting their requirements for information disclosure. Until now, in the field of otorhinolaryngology, most of the clinical pathways have been used only for surgeries of benign tumors, laryngomicrosurgery, endoscopic endonasal sinus surgery, sudden deafness and facial paralysis. On the other hand, it has been considered that chemotherapy for head and neck cancer is easily given incorrectly, so the clinical pathway in this field is unpopular.
This time, we desiged, implemented, and studied the effectiveness of clinical pathways in chemotherapy for head and neck cancer. We report the merits and demerits of pathways in chemotherapy.