Age as a determinant of outcomes for patients with oral cancer.
To determine whether survival outcomes of younger patients with oral cavity squamous cell cancer (OSCC) differs from older patients in the US. A retrospective cohort study using data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) registry. We studied cases (n=19681) of OSCC diagnosed from 1973 to 1999 and used age cutoffs at 40, 45, 50, and 55 years. Control groups of older patients were retrospectively matched on gender, race, cancer subsite, and stage of disease. Survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. A propensity score matching produced groups with similar distributions of patient and disease characteristics. Between these matched groups, younger patients had a significantly better five-year survival (age 40: 63.4% vs. 80.6%, p<0.0001; age 45: 59.0% vs. 72.8%, p<0.0001; age 50: 55.5% vs. 67.2%, p<0.0001; age 55: 54.0% vs. 64.3%, p<0.0001). These results confirm recent results using population-based data that suggest better overall survival in younger patients.
Goldenberg
David
D
Division of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, The Pennsylvania State University, College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA. dgoldenberg@hmc.psu.edu
Brooksby
Craig
C
Hollenbeak
Christopher S
CS
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000401:mortality*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D010610:Pharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality*; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018426:SEER Program; D016019:Survival Analysis; D015996:Survival Rate; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology