Introduction. Patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (PCCHN) are awaiting treatment due to delays that may occur at the patient’s level or upon her/his entry into the health care system. Any waiting in the process of treating these patients carries the risk of a poorer treatment outcome. In order to determine an acceptable time interval until the start of treatment with radiotherapy (RT) or concurrent chemoradiotherapy (ChT-RT), we analyzed in a cohort of Slovenian patients with SCCHN the effect of the duration of symptoms, diagnostic procedures, the duration of waiting for the onset of RT and the kinetics of tumor growth to the local, regional, and systemic disease recurrence and patient survival.
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