Cancer of the Head and Neck

CareOrbit is a digital perioperative patient-education and care navigation platform developed by the St. Louis-based venture Total Orbit in collaboration with Washington University's CORTEX Business Incubator. For head and neck cancer (HNC) care, the platform is designed to address gaps in perioperative education by guiding patients through each stage of their surgical journey using structured modules, step-by-step instructional videos, and centralized educational resources. CareOrbit delivers physician-authored content tailored to an individual's surgical care, including overviews of surgical treatment, preoperative preparation, and expectations for postoperative recovery. Early anecdotal experiences suggest that patients appreciate the accessibility of the tool, but systematic evaluation is lacking in whether use of the tool improves understanding, satisfaction, and care outcomes. This project will address key knowledge gaps by employing a clinical trial to examine key clinical endpoints.

This trial will explore giving standard dose chemotherapy and radiation therapy to sites of disease including all lymph nodes involved with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, but administer lower doses of radiation therapy to the lymph nodes that are not known to be involved with cancer. By doing so, it is hypothesized that there will be equally good long term loco-regional and distant disease control but will reduced long term treatment side effects and improved quality of life in persons living well beyond their cancer treatment.