BACKGROUND: In this retrospective review, the authors examined demographic/clinical characteristics and overall survival in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx at a tertiary cancer center, and they report the characteristics that influenced any observed survival trends over time. METHODS: The study included 3891 newly diagnosed, previously untreated patients who presented at the authors' institution between 1955 and 2004. RESULTS: Over time, patients presented at younger ages and were more likely to have base of tongue or tonsil tumors and to be never-smokers or former smokers. Patients who were diagnosed between 1995 and 2004 were almost half as likely to die as those who were diagnosed before 1995 (hazard ratio, 0.6; 95% confidence interval, 0.6-0.8). In both multivariable and recursive partitioning survival analyses, the TNM staging system predicted the survival of patients who received treatment before 1995 but did not predict the survival patients treated during the period from 1995 to 2004. CONCLUSIONS: Survival among patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx improved substantially over the past 50 years. The main contributing factors were changes in clinical characteristics, in particular surrogates for positive human papillomavirus status. The current TNM staging system for squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx is inadequate. The incorporation of human papillomavirus status and perhaps smoking status into the TNM system is encouraged.
BACKGROUND: In this retrospective review, the authors examined demographic/clinical characteristics and overall survival in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx at a tertiary cancer center, and they report the characteristics that influenced any observed survival trends over time. METHODS: The study included 3891 newly diagnosed, previously untreated patients who presented at the authors' institution between 1955 and 2004. RESULTS: Over time, patients presented at younger ages and were more likely to have base of tongue or tonsil tumors and to be never-smokers or former smokers. Patients who were diagnosed between 1995 and 2004 were almost half as likely to die as those who were diagnosed before 1995 (hazard ratio, 0.6; 95% confidence interval, 0.6-0.8). In both multivariable and recursive partitioning survival analyses, the TNM staging system predicted the survival of patients who received treatment before 1995 but did not predict the survival patients treated during the period from 1995 to 2004. CONCLUSIONS: Survival among patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx improved substantially over the past 50 years. The main contributing factors were changes in clinical characteristics, in particular surrogates for positive human papillomavirus status. The current TNM staging system for squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx is inadequate. The incorporation of human papillomavirus status and perhaps smoking status into the TNM system is encouraged.
Authors: J P Klussmann; S J Weissenborn; U Wieland; V Dries; J Kolligs; M Jungehuelsing; H E Eckel; H P Dienes; H J Pfister; P G Fuchs Journal: Cancer Date: 2001-12-01 Impact factor: 6.860
Authors: M L Gillison; W M Koch; R B Capone; M Spafford; W H Westra; L Wu; M L Zahurak; R W Daniel; M Viglione; D E Symer; K V Shah; D Sidransky Journal: J Natl Cancer Inst Date: 2000-05-03 Impact factor: 13.506
Authors: André Lopes Carvalho; Inês Nobuko Nishimoto; Joseph A Califano; Luiz Paulo Kowalski Journal: Int J Cancer Date: 2005-05-01 Impact factor: 7.396
Authors: Scott E Strome; Athanasia Savva; Anthony E Brissett; Bobbie S Gostout; Jean Lewis; Amy C Clayton; Renee McGovern; Amy L Weaver; David Persing; Jan L Kasperbauer Journal: Clin Cancer Res Date: 2002-04 Impact factor: 12.531
Authors: Kristen B Pytynia; Jonathan R Grant; Carol J Etzel; Dianna B Roberts; Qingyi Wei; Erich M Sturgis Journal: J Clin Oncol Date: 2004-10-01 Impact factor: 44.544
Authors: Justine M Ritchie; Elaine M Smith; Kurt F Summersgill; Henry T Hoffman; Donghong Wang; Jens P Klussmann; Lubomir P Turek; Thomas H Haugen Journal: Int J Cancer Date: 2003-04-10 Impact factor: 7.396
Authors: James S Lewis; David J Adelstein; Abbas Agaimy; Diane L Carlson; William C Faquin; Tim Helliwell; Jos Hille; Tony Ng; John M Nicholls; Brian O'Sullivan; Lester D R Thompson Journal: Arch Pathol Lab Med Date: 2018-11-30 Impact factor: 5.534
Authors: Mathew Geltzeiler; Marnie Bertolet; William Albergotti; John Gleysteen; Brennan Olson; Michael Persky; Neil Gross; Ryan Li; Peter Andersen; Seungwon Kim; Robert L Ferris; Umamaheswar Duvvuri; Daniel Clayburgh Journal: Oral Oncol Date: 2018-07-22 Impact factor: 5.337
Authors: Huaising C Ko; Paul M Harari; Ryan M Sacotte; Shuai Chen; Aaron M Wieland; Menggang Yu; Andrew M Baschnagel; Justine Y Bruce; Randall J Kimple; Matthew E Witek Journal: J Cancer Res Clin Oncol Date: 2017-07-27 Impact factor: 4.553
Authors: Vlad C Sandulache; John Hamblin; Syeling Lai; Todd Pezzi; Heath D Skinner; Numan A Khan; Shayan M Dioun; Christine Hartman; Jennifer Kramer; Elizabeth Chiao; Xiaodong Zhou; Jose P Zevallos Journal: Head Neck Date: 2015-07-04 Impact factor: 3.147
Authors: Pierre Blanchard; Adam S Garden; G Brandon Gunn; David I Rosenthal; William H Morrison; Mike Hernandez; Joseph Crutison; Jack J Lee; Rong Ye; C David Fuller; Abdallah S R Mohamed; Kate A Hutcheson; Emma B Holliday; Nikhil G Thaker; Erich M Sturgis; Merrill S Kies; X Ronald Zhu; Radhe Mohan; Steven J Frank Journal: Radiother Oncol Date: 2016-06-21 Impact factor: 6.280