Prognostic factors on surgically and non-surgically treated oral squamous cell carcinoma: Advances in survival in fifteen years of follow up

BACKGROUND: Retrospectively to evaluate the influence of radiochemotherapy (RCT) in the treatment of surgically and non-surgically treated Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC). MATERIAL AND METHODS: We analysed 934 patients treated in Hospital Haroldo Juaçaba (2000-2014; 15 years of study) by extraction of data type of cancer, localization of tumour, sex, age, race, education level, risk factors (smoking and alcohol use), year of diagnosis, TNM stage, therapeutic approach, health system used (public or private) and overall survival (OS). Surgically and non-surgically treated OSCC were compared by chi-square and Fisher’s exact tests, and their prognostic factors were analysed by log-rank Mantel-Cox plus Cox regression tests (SPSS 20.0, p<0.05). RESULTS: Non-surgically treated OSCC patients had a lower OS than surgically treated OSCC patients (p<0.001), but an increase in OS was shown in both groups. Although the 2010-2014 period (p=0.003), education level (p=0.032), tongue/mouth floor/palate localization (p=0.023) and TNM stage (p<0.05) were important in non-surgically treated OSCC OS, the major prognostic factors were node metastasis (p=0.003) and non-use of RCT (p=0.039) (multivariate analysis). In surgically treated OSCC patients, higher OS was shown in the 2010-2014 period (p<0.001), females (p=0.012), non-drinkers (p=0.011), non-smokers (p=0.009) and those with lower TNM stage (p<0.05), but the major prognostic factor was the 2010-2014 period (p=0.004) (multivariate analysis), which was directly associated with an increase in RCT indication (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The increase in RCT improved the OS in this large cohort of surgically and non-surgically treated OSCC patients. Key words:Mouth neoplasms, neck, radiotherapy, drug therapy, combination.