Importance of comorbidity in hypopharyngeal cancer.
BACKGROUND
Comorbidity has an impact on survival in laryngeal cancer in several reports. However, the importance of comorbidity in hypopharyngeal cancer (HPC) has not been reported.


METHODS
A retrospective medical record review of 156 patients with HPC treated between 1995 and 2005 was performed. Comorbid illness was measured by the Adult Comorbidity Evaluation-27. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine the factors related to overall survival.


RESULTS
Comorbidity was absent in 55 (35.2%) of the patients, mild in 39 (25%), moderate in 28 (17.9%), and severe in 34 (21.8%). There were statistically significant differences between the survival rates in accord with age, stage, subsite, and comorbidity (45.1% for none or mild vs 27.7% for moderate or severe; p = .0073). Age, stage, and comorbidity were identified as independent prognostic factors in the multivariate analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
Comorbidity, along with the clinical stage, should be considered in treatment planning for patients with HPC.
Homma
Akihiro
A
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Kita 15, Nishi 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-8638, Japan. ak-homma@med.hokudai.ac.jp
Sakashita
Tomohiro
T
Oridate
Nobuhiko
N
Suzuki
Fumiyuki
F
Suzuki
Seigo
S
Hatakeyama
Hiromitsu
H
Mizumachi
Takatsugu
T
Taki
Shigenari
S
Fukuda
Satoshi
S
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007012:Hypopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality* / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D015996:Survival Rate