Technology-assisted screening of patient-reported functional outcomes in the head and neck cancer population: What�s the evidence?

Introduction There is growing recognition that patient-reported outcome assessment tools are important components in the holistic clinical management of patients with head and neck cancer. Single administration of such tools can provide insight into the inci -dence and prevalence of the many multifaceted and debilitating func-tional deficits experienced by this population, while routine screening using patient-reported outcomes can assist in the early detection of cancer care. “at-risk” patients and serve as a pro-cess for monitoring functional status over time. To assist the implementation of routine patient-reported outcome screening in clinical practice, an tations that currently restrict the emerging body of literature has begun to explore the use of technology to help collect and summarise data in real-time for clinical use. The pur-pose of this review is to appraise the current evidence-base for the use of technology-assisted screening of functional patient-reported out-comes in the head and neck cancer population and to identify areas of future research need.