Influence of marital status on overall survival in adult patients with chordoma: a SEER-based study

BACKGROUND: As a rare primary bone tumor, no studies have reported the relationship between prognosis and marital status in patients with chordoma. METHODS: We classified patients with chordoma identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from 1975 to 2016 into four groups: married, divorced/separated, widowed, and single groups. Kaplan-Meier curves with log-rank test and Cox regression were used to analyze the effect of marital status on overall survival (OS). RESULTS: A total of 1080 patients were included in the study: 700 (64.8%) were married, 88 (8.1%) were divorced/separated, 78 (7.2%) were widowed, and 214 (19.8%) were single. Among the 4 groups, the 5-year OS (45.2%), 10-year OS (12.5%), and median OS (56.0 months) were the lowest in the widowed group. After including age, sex, primary site, marital status, disease stage, tumor size, histological type, and treatment pattern, multivariate analysis showed that marital status was still an independent risk factor for patients with chordoma, and widowed patients had the lowest OS (hazard ratio [HR] 1.71; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.25–2.33, p < 0.001) compared with married patients. Similar results were observed after stratifying the primary site and disease stage. CONCLUSION: Marital status was an independent prognostic indicator for adult patients with chordoma, and marital status was conducive to patient survival. Compared with married patients, widowed patients have a higher risk of death.