Prognosis in mouth cancer: host factors

Abstract

A personal series of 842 patients with a tumour of the oral cavity is presented. Five hundred and twelve of these patients had a histologically proven squamous cell carcinoma, and were previously untreated.Increasing age was associated with worsening performance status. Women were older at presentation than men, and tumours of the upper part of the mouth were more common in the elderly, but there was no relation between age and histological grade or stage grouping.Sex had no correlation with performance status or histological grade. However, men were more likely to have an advanced tumour, and tumours of the floor of the mouth and alveolus were much commoner in men.There was no correlation between performance status and site or histological grade, but patients in poor general condition were more likely to have stage III-IV tumours.Multivariate analysis showed that sex had no impact whatever on survival, but survival fell with increasing age and worsening performance status. The effect of age and performance status disappeared when the survival of treated patients was adjusted for deaths due to other causes.

Nomogram for deciding adjuvant treatment after surgery for oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma

“…The nomogram shows an inverse relationship between age and LRFS after treatment of OCSCC, suggesting a slightly worse outcome for older patients (see Figure 2). Congruent with prior observations, 34 the impact of gender on outcome predicted by the nomogram is minimal in favor of women (HR 0.86, 95% CI 0.68-1.39). Surprisingly, the nomogram estimates a nonsmoker to have a reduced chance of LRFS after treatment of OCSCC relative to a smoker (see Figure 2).…”

Prognostic Indicators for Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Cavity: A Clinicopathologic Correlation

“…The literature is replete with papers dedicated to evaluating the role of host factors, particularly age, sex, and race as prognostic indicators 7,8 . Because age, race, and gender influence the stage of disease at presentation, and the choice of therapy, it can be argued that survival differentials based on these factors may be illusionary and instead may represent secondary associations with clinical variables.…”

Age and survival from squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue

“…3 No differences were found in clinical course or prognosis for tongue cancer in patients less than 40 years of age, although the control group for this comparison is not described. Stell 4 reported his personal experience with more than 800 oral cancers and found decreased crude survival with increased age. He attributed this to decreased performance status in older patients.…”