Squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity

A number of treatment modalities are available in the management of oral cavity cancer. These are surgery (operation OP), irradiation (radiotherapy RT), chemotherapy (CHT), or complex therapy performed as a combination of the later three methods with various survival rates. A multidisciplinary team approach in every individual case is required.

Authors analysed retrospectively a group of 622 patients (553 men, 69 women), mean age 58.6 years (range 23-88 years) hospitalised in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty Hospital and Faculty of Medicine Comenius University in Bratislava within the years 1992-2001 with primary untreated histologically confirmed squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity (beside cancer of the lip and salivary glands). Gender, age, location and TNM staging of the disease, clinical and histopathological evaluations of the neck lymph nodes and relationship to the treatment modalities were recorded. The authors compared some parameters of the results obtained during their previous study within the years 1977-1986 (453 patients).

The number of cases with squamous cell carcinoma of oral cavity increased by 37.31% in total as well as that of cases with advanced disease, especially stage IV (318 patients = 56.6%) increased by 7.6%. In the studied group there occurred cases that were clinically falsely negative by NO (11.04%) as well as falsely positive by N1 (39.1%) when examined by palpation of lymph nodes. The overall 5-year survival rate remained at the same level (55.4 %), the early and late stages did not change the survival rate at the 5th year (I = 75.1%, II = 69.9%, III = 47.5%, IV = 25.1%). Regarding the complexity of treatment, the best 5-year survival rates showed the complex three-modal therapy (CHT + OP + RT = 23.5%), comparing to the dual (OP + RT or CHT + RT = 19.4%) and mono-modal therapy (OP or RT alone = 17.2%). In the complex therapy, the mean disease-free interval improved (30.2 vs 39.4 months) due to a change in the sequence of therapy modalities.

The increase in the number of cases with advanced disease has a warning trend. The reasons of this trend remain unclear. In spite of the fact that the overal 5-year survival was found not to improve, the quality of life regarding the mean disease-free interval in the group of patients under the complex treatment is considered to be a positive result (Tab. 3, Fig. 4, Ref. 27). Full Text (Free, PDF) www.bmj.sk.