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.