Clinical Research Directory

App-Assisted Swallowing Program After Oral Cancer Surgery

This study aims to examine the effects of a swallowing care program combined with an exercise mobile application (App) on swallowing function, anxiety, and quality of life in patients with oral cancer after flap reconstruction surgery. The goal is to determine whether integrating App-based swallowing exercises into postoperative care can improve rehabilitation outcomes compared with conventional care alone. A purposive sampling method will be used to recruit 72 participants from the surgical wards of a medical center in northern Taiwan. Eligible patients scheduled for oral cancer tumor resection and flap reconstruction will be identified through consultation with plastic surgeons. After screening and informed consent, participants will be assigned to a control group or an experimental group, with approximately 36 patients in each group. The control group will receive routine ward education and standard postoperative nursing care, while the experimental group will receive the same care plus an additional intervention using a swallowing exercise App. The intervention will begin on postoperative day 7, guided by the researcher. Follow-up assessments will be conducted during outpatient visits at postoperative week 4 and week 12. To minimize potential interference between participants, data collection will be performed sequentially-first for the control group, followed by the experimental group. Data will be collected through self-administered questionnaires or researcher-assisted interviews, including a demographic survey, the Postoperative Oral Dysfunction-10 (POD-10), the Functional Oral Intake Scale (FOIS), a Visual Analog Scale for Anxiety, and the EORTC QLQ-H\&N35 questionnaire for quality of life. Each assessment will take approximately 20-30 minutes. Participants may withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize participant characteristics. The chi-square test and independent t-test will be used to examine group homogeneity. Paired t-tests will be applied to evaluate within-group changes in swallowing function, anxiety, and quality of life before and after the intervention. The results of this study are expected to provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of App-assisted swallowing rehabilitation for patients with oral cancer following reconstructive surgery, supporting the development of innovative, technology-based postoperative care models.

Postoperative Management of Patients Undergoing Head and Neck Microvascular Free Flap Reconstructive Surgery: is Admission to an Intensive Care Unit Necessary?

The aim of our study is to assess if patients undergoing head and neck free flap reconstructive surgery admitted to the ICU have equivalent postoperative outcomes to those admitted to an Otolaryngology specialty ward

The Association Between Radiation Dermatitis and Skin Microbiome in Breast Cancer Patients

The breast cancer patients who received radiotherapy after mastectomy and breast reconstruction will be enrolled. The skin microbiome before radiotherapy and its changes after radiotherapy will be analyzed systematically to find out whether the skin microbiome is associated with the severity of radiation dermatitis.

AFT: Introduction of a Full Breast Reconstructive Method

A multicentre prospective cohort study will monitor the efficacy and safety of Autologous Fat Transfer (AFT) with pre-expansion. AFT will be evaluated in terms of quality of life, aesthetic result, complications, oncological safety and cost-effectiveness. It follows the BREAST trial, the randomised controlled trial comparing AFT with implant-based reconstruction. In this study, patients all receive AFT.