A Quantitative Clinical Decision-support Strategy Identifying Which Oropharyngeal Head and Neck Cancer Patients may Benefit the Most from Proton Radiation Therapy

We developed and implemented a data-driven decision support system for identifying those oropharyngeal cancer patients likely to have the greatest benefit from proton therapy. We found that younger patients with p16-positive tumors who smoked ≤10 pack-years were estimated to have the most quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) spared with proton therapy, as compared to photon IMRT. Importantly, the estimated benefit of proton therapy depends strongly on the organ-at-risk doses achievable with photon IMRT.

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