Nutritional Prehabilitation in Head and Neck Cancer

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  The investigation of co-produced nutritional prehabilitation intervention for head and neck cancer patients treated with radiotherapy (with/without chemotherapy): Co ENHANCE

• IRAS ID

  336133

• Contact name

  Linda Cantwell

• Contact email

  linda.cantwell@merseycare.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of Liverpool

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 10 months, 22 days

• Research summary

  This research will work together with people who have had head and neck cancer (HNC) along with their caregivers, health professionals and policy makers to find out about their experiences and challenges with nutrition and preparing for their cancer treatment. Ideas of what could be done to improve the delivery of nutrition support before treatment to improve patient care and help to better manage treatment side effects in the short and long term will be discussed. Together an answer will be agreed, and this will be created with the group. The study will then test the agreed solution with new patients that receive radiotherapy treatment with/without chemotherapy (CRT) for HNC and get their views.

  This project will involve two pieces of work over three years.
  1. Co production/co-creation.
  This will involve a number of focus groups/workshops that will bring together people who have had HNC, caregivers of people with HNC, health professionals and policy makers that are involved with HNC. These people will be invited from the UK and known as the co-creation participants. At these workshops the co-creation participants will share the challenges and a agree a solution for supporting nutrition before oncology treatment. The agreed nutritional prehabilitation intervention solution will then be created. This will be called Co-ENHANCE.

  2. Feasibility study
  This will test to see if Co-ENHANCE is practical and how it works for newly diagnosed patients receiving CRT. Co-ENHANCE will be delivered as part of a nutrition assessment appointment with the dietitian before they start treatment as agreed by the co-creation group. People who have received Co-ENHANCE will be invited to take part in a short interview to share their views.

• REC name

  Wales REC 7

• REC reference

  25/WA/0162

• Date of REC Opinion

  27 Jun 2025

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion