title: Cause of death in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. An autopsy study on 31 patients.
abstract: A series of 31 autopsied patients, with a history of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is reported, with the emphasis on the cause of death. There were 26 males and 5 females; mean age being 64 years (range 44-88 years). Locoregional disease (LRD) was the cause of death in 19 patients (61%) and was present in 2 patients dying of an unrelated cause. Distant metastasis (DM) was found in 8 patients (26%) but had caused death in only 1 of them. A shorter survival time for patients with DM than for those without (8 months versus 13 months) indicates that DM is established early in the course of the disease. Therefore, a longer survival time will not result in an increase in DM and we infer that a better locoregional control will also not result in a real increase in DM but only in an apparent one, due to a shift of cause of death from LRD to DM in a group of patients that formerly would have died of LRD before the already present DM had become manifest.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, University Hospital Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Slootweg
authors.forename: C W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Bolle
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Koole
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Hordijk
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001344:Autopsy; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology / Q000556:secondary; D002423:Cause of Death; D005260:Female; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged