Oropharyngeal Cancer Survival: A Population-Based Study of Patients Diagnosed between 1978 and 2002

Objective. This paper aims at studying oropharyngeal cancer survival from the Population-Based Cancer Registry of Zaragoza, Spain, for the 1978–2002 period. Methods. The survival rates were calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and the automated calculation method of the Catalan Institute of Oncology was utilized to obtain the relative survival. Results. The oropharyngeal cancer survival rate was 61.3% in the first year and 33.9% in the fifth year. One-year relative survival was 62.2% (CI 95%: 57.4–67.4), and five-year relative survival was 36.6% (CI 95%: 31.8–42.1). Comparison of survival rates by sex revealed statistically significant differences (P value = 0.017) with better survival in women. There were no differences when comparing the three age groups and the three studied time periods 1978–1986, 1987–1994, and 1995–2002. Conclusions. The data suggests that there were no significant changes in oropharyngeal cancer survival in the province of Zaragoza throughout the years.