Oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in young adults: A retrospective study in Granada University Hospital

Abstract

BackgroundThis study aims to evaluate and analyze the clinical features and outcomes of oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in patients < 45-years old in our center.Material and MethodsA retrospective analysis was conducted using the records of patients diagnosed with oral and oropharyngeal SCC between 1998 and 2011 in the University Hospital of Granada (Spain). The analysis identified 33 patients with oral and oropharyngeal SCC with an age of <45 years. Moreover, during the years studied, a further 472 patients were diagnosed with oral and oropharyngeal SCC in our center. Thus, 100 SCC patients with an age of >45 years were randomly selected from the same database. A retrospective analysis was conducted to determine specific features including sites of occurrence, risk factors, sex distribution, socio-economic status, T stage at diagnosis, nodal involvement, degree of tumor differentiation, locoregional failure and overall survival at 5 years was. Further, the results of both groups were compared.ResultsThe male-female ratio was 1.2:1 in the group of young adults and 2.03:1 in the group of patients with an age of >45 years. No significant differences were found in terms of site, nodal involvement, locoregional failure, and overall survival. However, there were statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of features such as risk factors, socio-economic status, T stage at diagnosis, and degree of tumor differentiation. The overall 5-year survival rate was 62% for patients >45 years old, whilst for the group of young adults this rate was 48.4% (p= 0.17).ConclusionsThe poor association between the common risk factors and oral and oropharyngeal cancers in young adults suggests that other pathogenic mechanisms should be investigated. For young patients, the data show evidence of poorer outcomes in terms of overall survival (p=0.17), and locoregional failure (p=0.23). Nevertheless, the literature shows that the results in this field are particularly inconsistent, and further research is therefore needed to provide more in-depth knowledge of the disease in this age group. Key words:Oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, young adults, poor prognosis,risk factors.

Older age is a risk factor associated with poor prognosis of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity

“…A review of the reported studies demonstrates that our clinical characteristic findings are in agreement with several previously published large cohort studies [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. First, OC-SCC mainly occurs in men between the 5th and 6th decades of life.…”

“…In many types of cancer, age at diagnosis is viewed as an independent predictor of outcome [11]. In the field of OC-SCC, there is no uniform category of "young" patients and previous analyses were performed using age thresholds ranging from 30 to 45 years of age [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. It is difficult to determine a reasonable cutoff between "young" and "old" adults.…”

Squamous cell carcinoma of the oral tongue: Distinct epidemiological profile disease

“…Cariati et al 16 compared 33 patients with oral and oropharyngeal SCC who were 45 years old or younger with 100 patients older than 45. While the oral tongue was the most common subsite, in the young group, the proportion of oral tongue cancer among young patients was less than that shown in our cohort (54.5%, 18/33).…”

Keratinizing Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Palate in Clinically Negative Neck: Case Report and Review

“…Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) of the head and neck regions represents the sixth most common cancer in male patients after lung, prostate, colorectal, stomach, and bladder cancer; but the tenth most common cancer in female patients after breast, colorectal, lung, stomach, uterus, cervix, ovary, bladder and liver cancer [1][2][3][4]. It is usually encountered during the sixth and seventh decades of life, but the increase of patients under the fifth decade was recently reported in the literature [3]. Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) is considered the most common malignant tumor of the oral cavity [1,[5][6][7] that represents approximately 90-95% of all oral malignant tumors [4,7].…”

“…At least half of the head and neck malignant tumors reported in the literature are oral SCC [1]. The SCC of the palate as well as SCC of maxillary gingiva and maxillary alveolus are relatively rare compared to other sites of oral SCC [1,3,5,6,8]. SCC accounts for 66% of malignant tumors of the hard palate and maxillary alveolus.…”