Treatment of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) has a detrimental impact on patient quality of life. The rate of recognized distress/depression among HNSCC patients ranges from 9.8% to 83.8%, and the estimated prevalence of depression among patients receiving radiotherapy is 63%. Shorter overall survival also occurs in preexisting depression or depressive conditions. The present study analyzes the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) blood serum metabolic profiles during radio-/chemoradiotherapy and correlates the detected alterations with pain and/or distress accumulated with the disease and its treatment. NMR spectra were acquired on a Bruker 400 MHz spectrometer and analyzed using multivariate methods. The results indicate that distress and/or pain primarily affect the serum lipids and metabolites of energy (glutamine, glucose, lactate, acetate) and one-carbon (glycine, choline, betaine, methanol, threonine, serine, histidine, formate) metabolism. Sparse disturbances in the branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) and in the metabolites involved in protein metabolism (lysine, tyrosine, phenylalanine) are also observed. Depending on the treatment modality-radiotherapy or concurrent chemoradiotherapy-there are some differences in the altered metabolites.
Keywords: HNSCC; chemotherapy; distress; metabolomics; pain; radiotherapy.