Survival results of 3786 patients with stage I or II laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma: a study based on a propensity score

INTRODUCTION: Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma is the second most prevalent malignancy among head and neck tumors, and the treatment of patients with stage I or II disease can be performed with surgery or radiation therapy. National population studies describing therapeutic results comparing these modalities are unusual, but they can be very important to direct treatment guidelines. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the survival results of patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma at clinical stages I or II, according to the main therapeutic modalities used. METHODS: Cross-sectional, population-based study using the database of Fundação Oncocentro de São Paulo from January 2000 to March 2019. Inclusion criteria were patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma in clinical stages cT1-2N0. To compensate for the non-random allocation of patients and the imbalance between confounding variables between groups, we used the propensity score methodology. RESULTS: A total of 3786 patients met the inclusion criteria. Regarding the cT stage, there were 2171 patients (57.3%) with cT1 tumors. Patients in the public health system had a longer time between diagnosis and treatment (p < 0.001). The analysis by propensity score showed that patients treated with surgery had a tendency towards better disease-specific survival (p = 0.012). Comparing radiotherapy alone versus its combination with radiochemotherapy, radiotherapy alone showed a tendency towards a better survival rate (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Analysis by propensity score identified better results for disease-specific survival in patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma at clinical stages I and II treated by surgery when compared to radiotherapy.