Can prosthodontic rehabilitation support social eating and return to work in head and neck cancer survivors? A scoping review
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: Oral dysfunction following head and neck cancer (HNC) treatment is a significant barrier for survivors attempting to return to work. Prosthodontic rehabilitation, including the replacement of missing teeth, plays a crucial role in restoring oral functions and addressing social eating, aesthetics, and functional limitations, potentially aiding survivors' re-entry into the workforce. This scoping review aims to map literature exploring the role of prosthodontic rehabilitation in facilitating social eating and return to work in HNC survivors. METHODS: We systematically searched MEDLINE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO databases up to February 15, 2024, for studies on return to work or social eating in HNC survivors, with a focus on tooth loss and prosthodontic rehabilitation post-treatment. An updated search was conducted on June 11, 2025. RESULTS: Thirteen studies were eligible, including four qualitative and nine quantitative works. Findings indicate a lack of studies directly linking prosthodontic rehabilitation to return to work and social eating. Limited quantitative data suggest that HNC survivors with dental prostheses, particularly implant-supported dentures, report fewer difficulties with social eating and employment compared to non-users. Qualitative data show that survivors value prosthodontic rehabilitation, particularly once their cancer is under control. CONCLUSIONS: While limited, available evidence suggests that prosthodontic rehabilitation improves HNC survivors' social eating, self-confidence, and quality of life, facilitating re-entry into the workforce. Implant-supported prostheses appear to offer better outcomes, enhancing social interactions and food choices. IMPLICATIONS FOR CANCER SURVIVORS: Functional dental prostheses enhance self-confidence in public eating and social interactions, highlighting their role in long-term well-being and survivorship.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".