Olfactory esthesioneuroblastoma--variables predictive of tumor control and recurrence.

This report surveys the world literature concerning prognostic variables for patients with esthesioneuroblastoma, an uncommon tumor arising from the olfactory epithelium. Specific sites of local and regional tumor extension, recurrence of disease after treatment, distant metastasis, and patient age were all found to be related to patient prognosis. There is a higher cure rate for patients treated after 1966, indicating an improvement in treatment methods. Also, the results indicate that in more recent years patients are being diagnosed and treated with less advanced disease. A statistical procedure, discriminant analysis, was employed, which permits the oncologist to predict patient outcome accurately. The discriminant function equation was 87% correct in identifying patients with tumor control (for a minimum period of 36 months) or recurrence and was 84% correct in classifying patients free of disease for at least 60 months or with recurrence. The statistical procedures employed in this report can be extended to other tumors and survival criteria.