title: [Survival of patients with advanced head and neck cancer. Are we treating too many patients?].
abstract: Survival of patients with carcinoma in head or neck is positively associated with the stage of the disease at diagnosis. A dynamic cohort of 433 patients from Oslo with head and neck carcinoma included 162 (37.4%) patients staged 4. For these patients, the prognosis was extremely serious, 5-year survival was 22.3%. In 120 of these, the primary tumour was staged 4. It was found that the presence of an advanced primary tumour (T4) in the oral cavity, oro- or hypopharynx gave the worst prognosis. Compared with NO patients, Neck metastasis, irrespective of T-stage, increased the odds ratio for mortality to the double in N1 patients, by a factor of three in N2 patients and by a factor of nearly eight in N3 patients. Owing to the serious prognosis and reduced quality of life after surgery, this is not the treatment of choice for stage 4 disease, especially when the primary tumour is advanced and localized in the oral cavity or oro/hypopharynx, or if neck metastases are present. Irrespective of treatment (surgery or irradiation) the patient's outcome (quality of life) must be evaluated against the chance of survival. 34 (8%) patients of the cohort did not receive any active treatment.
authors.affiliation: Ore-nese-halsavdelingen, Familie og Barnklinikken, Ullevål sykehus, Oslo.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Faye-Lund
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000556:secondary / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009664:Norway / Q000453:epidemiology; D011379:Prognosis; D011788:Quality of Life; D015996:Survival Rate
vernacular_title: Overlevelse ved avansert hode- og halskreft. Behandler vi for mange pasienter?