TITLE:
The Survival of Head and Neck Carcinoma Patients Depends on Secondary Causes of Death
AUTHORS:
André Buchali, Winfried Huhnt, Ina Maekelburg, Sophia Rohrberg, Dietrich Sidow, Eyck Blank, Christina Schroeder, Achim Franzen
KEYWORDS:
Head and Neck Carcinoma, Radiochemotherapy, Causes of Death
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Cancer Therapy,
Vol.8 No.13,
December
14,
2017
ABSTRACT: Purpose: The study aimed to
analyse causes of death and differential survival after multimodal treatment of
head and neck carcinoma patients. Methods and Materials: Between September 2000
and December 2015, 935 patients received a multimodal treatment of head and
neck carcinoma. Of these, 562 patients (60.1%) underwent a resection of the
primary tumour and a postoperative radio- or radiochemotherapy and 373 patients
(39.9%) received definitive radio- or radiochemotherapy. The median follow-up
was 21.0 months (0.5 - 175.4 months). Results: At
the endpoint of the investigation, 465 patients (49.7%) were alive. The median
survival of all patients was 44.8 months (0.5 - 164.3 months). A total of 470 patients (50.3%) died.
The causes of death were divided into five groups: 22 patients (2.4%) died of
therapy-associated complications with a median of 2.2 months (1.6 - 3.3 months). The 160 patients (17.1%) with
intercurrent death, 117 patients (12.5%) with deaths from locoregional
progression with or without metastasis, and 86 patients (9.2%) with deaths from
metastasis without locoregional recurrence showed comparable survival curves
with a median survival of 13.3 months, 13.6 months, and 14.4 months.
Eighty-five patients (9.1%) died from second malignant diseases and controlled
treated head and neck carcinomas with a median survival of 34.5 months (P