What's Love Got to do with it? Marital status and survival of head and neck cancer

Abstract

Objective To determine whether marital status independently predicts survival in a head and neck cancer (HNC) survivor population. Methods In this retrospective cohort study, we analysed data from 460 adult patients (59.31 ± 11.42) years diagnosed with HNC at an academic tertiary referral centre between 1997 and 2012. Cox proportional hazards model estimated the effect of marital status on survival. Results Our study had 73% men, and 82.2% were Whites. We found an association between marital status and HNC survival. Unmarried HNC patients had a 66% increase in hazard of death compared to married patients (aHR = 1.66, 95% CI = 1.23–2.23). This was after controlling for sociodemographic variables (age, race, sex and health insurance status), social habits (tobacco and alcohol), primary anatomical subsite (oral cavity, oropharyngeal, laryngeal and others), stage at presentation (early vs. late stage) and treatment modality (surgery, surgery with adjuvant therapies, other single modality therapy and palliative care). Conclusions Being married confers survival advantage for HNC survivors. Our finding underscores the need to recognise this aspect of survivorship. Social support should be considered part of standard care for managing HNC. There may also be need to develop other support mechanisms, especially for unmarried HNC survivors.

Nomogram for Predicting the Overall Survival of Adult Patients With Primary Gastrointestinal Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma: A SEER- Based Study

“…Marital status is not only a risk factor of developing cancers (25,26), but also an independent prognostic indicator of many cancer (27)(28)(29)(30). Married patients may possess relatively strong financial resources, which made it easier to get better therapies and thus was associated with better prognosis.…”

The Impact of Marital Status on Stage at Diagnosis and Survival of Female Patients with Breast and Gynecologic Cancers: A Meta-Analysis

“…One explanation is that sexually active women present early symptoms for some cancers, such as cervical cancer [19], since postcoital bleeding is a typical symptom. Moreover, close partners may notice early symptoms [20] and encourage their wives to seek medical care instantly once symptoms develop. Another possible explanation is that spouses may promote timely health screenings [21].…”

Sociodemographic correlates of head and neck cancer survival among patients with metastatic disease

“…While sociodemographic factors such as marital status, [7][8][9] health insurance status, [10][11][12][13][14] and race/ethnicity [15][16][17][18][19][20] have been explored in HNC, it is unknown if these factors impact patients of HNC with end-stage disease. It is also unknown if there are differences in the impact of these sociodemographic factors based on whether cases are oropharyngeal vs non-oropharyngeal.…”