Oral squamous cell carcinoma among Yemenis: Onset in young age and presentation at advanced stage

Abstract

Objectives: Oral cancer represents a health burden worldwide. Up to 90% of oral cancer cases are squamous cell carcinomas (SCC). The data on oral SCC in Yemen are lacking. The objective of this study therefore was to describe and analyze the demographic, clinical and histological characteristics of Yemeni patients with oral SCC. Study Design: In this cross-sectional study, two sets of retrospective data for Yemeni cancer patients were obtained officially by two different registries. Patients with oral SCC were included. Their ages were dichotomized using 40 and 45 years alternately as individual cut-points for young and old patients. The patients` demographic, clinical and histological characteristics were statistically analyzed. Results: There were 457 Yemenis with oral SCC; 253 patients (55.4%) were men. The overall mean age was 58.15±14.11 years. The tongue was the most affected oral sub-site accounting for 53% of the reported cases. The well and moderately differentiated oral SCC accounted for 55.5% and 25.6% of the total cases respectively. Noteworthy, 62 patients (14%) were affected by the age of ?40; this increased to 105 patients (23%) aged ?45 years. Additionally, a high proportion of oral SCC patients (62%, 283) were diagnosed at advanced tumor stages (regional extension or metastasized). The distributions of histological grades and tumor stages in young and old patients were significantly different (P=0.006 and 0.026 respectively). Conclusion: The relative frequency of oral SCC among Yemeni young people is high. Unfortunately, most of oral SCC patients in Yemen were diagnosed at advanced stage. Key words:Oral squamous cell carcinoma, Yemen, young patients, advanced stage.

Retrospective analysis of biopsied oral and maxillofacial lesions in South-Western Saudi Arabia

“…The prevalence is reported to be high in Southeast Asia, with figures higher than 30% of all malignancies 28. The male-to-female ratio of 1:1.9 is in agreement with earlier studies of KSA3,4 but differs most other reports, where it is predominant in males 17,29,30…”

Oral cancer in the UAE: a multicenter, retrospective study

“…Twenty-six percentage of OSCC patients were younger than 45 years in our study, which was comparable to findings in Yemen (24), but higher than those reported in Jordan (15), Brazil (11), Thailand (23), the United States (28), and the United Kingdom (29). The diagnosis of cancer at a younger age indicates the need to biopsy suspicious oral lesions to rule out malignancy in patients as young as in their second or third decade of life.…”

“…In our series, 14.3% of OSCC were below 40 years. Comparable results were reported in Yemen (14%) (24), Iran (13%) (22), and Libya (15%) (12). A lower proportion of younger cases of OSCC were seen in Brazil (8.7%) (11), Sri Lanka (8.7%) (19), and Malaysia (4.3%) (16).…”

“…This differed slightly from the findings in Brazil and Sri Lanka, where the M:F ratio was 3:1 (11, 19). Lower M:F ratios were seen in Iraq (2:1) (20), Jordan (1.77:1) (15), Libya (1.61:1) (12), Pakistan and Nigeria (1.4:1) (13, 21), Iran and Thailand (1.3:1) (22, 23), Yemen (1.24:1) (24), and Malaysia (0.92:1) (16). Gender is not a risk factor per se for oral cancer.…”

“…An age range of 28–89 years was noted in our study. Even wider age ranges of 10–80 years swere seen for OSCC in studies conducted in Allahabad, India (18), Yemen (16–110 years) (24), Nigeria (3–86 years) (21), Thailand (17–97 years) (23), and Libya (21–93 years) (12). …”