Oral cancer: the behaviour and response to treatment of 194 cases

During the 16 year period 1960-1975, 350 cases of Oral Cancer were seen in the Department of Oral and Maxillo-Facial Surgery at the London Hospital. Detailed records were available for 250 patients. After excluding tumours of the salivary glands, sarcomata and tumours of the reticulo-endothelial system 194 cases remained and these were subjected to a computer analysis. The overall 5 year survival figure, not corrected for age and sex was, 32.8%. The local recurrence rate for all sites was 44%, 90% of these recurred within 2 years of diagnosis. The overall uncorrected 5 year survival figure for females was 42.1% and that for males was 22.9%. Analysis of the material has not provided a satisfactory explanation for this; lesions do not present at an earlier stage in females neither do they occur in younger patients. The distribution of the lesions by site and histology was the same for both sexes. Survival rates analysed by clinical staging at presentation confirm that the prognosis for early stage lesions is very much better than for late stage lesions, the 5 year survival for Stage I being 50% whereas that for Stage IV is only 20%.