Prognostic factors for cancer of the oral cavity.
OBJECTIVE
A survival analysis was conducted on 101 patients with oral cancer to determine the influence of certain clinical and pathological parameters on survival.


METHODS
Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess survival and estimate hazard ratios adjusted for potential confounders.


RESULTS
Survival rates were influenced by tumor diameter (P = .030), clinical T (P = .028), clinical N (P = .019), clinical stage (P = .006), lymph node involvement (P = .003) and histologic malignancy grade (P = .0063). The multivariate analysis included only 1 variable, the lymph node involvement. For clinical stage, the mean histologic malignancy grade was 1.71, 2.27, 2.53, and 2.61, respectively, for stages I through IV (r(s) = 0.423, P < .001).


CONCLUSIONS
This study proposes considering the tumor size as the most significant clinical variable for predicting the survival of oral cancer patients at the time of diagnosis and the degree of lymph node involvement after the treatment.
Prieto
Ignacio
I
Department of Oral Medicine and Periodontology, School of Stomatology, University Complutense of Madrid, Spain.
Prieto
Antonio
A
Bravo
Manuel
M
Bascones
Antonio
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000175:diagnosis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000628:therapy; D037981:Neck Dissection