Age as a prognostic factor for late local recurrence of early tongue cancer treated with brachytherapy.
BACKGROUND
We aimed to examine predisposing factors on late local recurrence of early oral tongue cancer (T1-2N0).


METHODS
We analysed 152 patients with no evidence of disease 2 years after interstitial radiation therapy without external radiation.


RESULTS
Multivariate analysis showed age to be the only significant prognostic factor for late local control (p = 0.03). We then examined the influence of age by comparing the results between 36 older patients (age more than, or equal to, 65) and 116 other control patients (age less than 65). Aged patients showed poor local control rates of 62% at 10 years after treatment, whereas the corresponding figures for control patients were 90% (p = 0.003). The cause specific survival rate at 10 years was also lower in elderly patients (75%) than in control patients (93%, p = 0.02).


CONCLUSIONS
Age is a predisposing factor for late local recurrence in patients free from disease 2 years after treatment.
Yamazaki
H
H
Department of Radiation Oncology, Osaka University Medical School, Japan.
Inoue
T
T
Koizumi
M
M
Yoshida
K
K
Kagawa
K
K
Shiomi
H
H
Imai
A
A
Tanaka
E
E
Teshima
T
T
Nakamura
H
H
Shimizutani
K
K
Furukawa
S
S
Fuchihata
H
H
Inoue
T
T
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001918:Brachytherapy; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate; D013997:Time Factors; D014062:Tongue Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D017211:Treatment Failure