Factors predicting survival in patients with early stage laryngeal cancer: A cohort study between 2000 to 2015

In recent years, trends of treatment and survival of laryngeal cancer have received heightened attention. Despite the fact that most laryngeal cancers are diagnosed at early stage, a concern of worsening survival in patients with localized cancer has been raised but not consistently observed. This study aimed to determine factors affecting laryngeal cancer survival.

This was a cohort study from 2000 to 2015 in which clinical and demographic characteristics of patients at early stage of laryngeal cancer were collected. Medical records and telephone interviews were used to define patient's demographic and clinical status during the study period. Multivariate Cox model was used as the main method for analyzing data.

Age at diagnosis, type of treatment, stage, and tumor grade were statistically associated with patient survival. Older patients were more prone to worse prognosis (HR=1.69, 95% CI: 1.03-2.75, p=0.03). The results also suggested that people who had surgery compared with those who received only radiation therapy (RT) survived longer (HR=0.44, 95% CI: 0.20-0.94, p=0.03). Furthermore, for those whose tumor was grade 3 at diagnosis, the risk of death was 2.45-fold higher than those with grade 1 (HR =2.45, 95% CI: 1.19-5.40, p=0.01). Stage II patients experienced worse prognosis than stage I patients (HR=1.77, 95% CI: 1.06-2.93, p=0.02).

This study revealed several factors that can influence patient survival rate, among them different therapeutic approaches.