Association of age with depth of invasion and extra capsular spread in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma: A retrospective study

Abstract

Introduction: Oral malignancy is most common tumors in Pakistan. The age of the greater part of the patient’s reaches somewhere in the range of 50 and 70 years and old age is an indirect risk factor for malignant growths. It is challenging to treat the older patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma due to poor performance and the adjusted physiology and the additional comorbidities that may influence the decision of surgery and adjuvant treatment, whenever scheduled. Above mentioned factors in elderly group might affect the option of treatment and may vary from the ideal treatment. We aim to evaluate the association of age with depth of invasion and to assess the association of age with extra capsular spread and risk factors in patients with oral cancer. Material/Methods: This is a retrospective study. Total 360 patients underwent the surgery from 2011 to 2017 of which 260 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria for our study. The chi-square test was applied to check the association between ages with a depth of invasion of tumor. Results: There were 260 patients who underwent treatment for oral cancer it was subdivided in 3 age groups and multiple addictions are most common in every age group 51% (n=133). Majority of the patients had final stage III and IVA with 31% (n=80) and 35% (n=92). Age has a significant association with the depth of invasion, about 56% (n=144) has >10 mm depth of invasion of tumor with 95% of CI (P-value=0.01). There was no extracapsular spread in 82% (n=214) and yes in 18% (n=46) of the patients with 95% of CI (p-value= 0.149) which was insignificant in patients with oral cancer. Conclusion: This study shows that oral cancer has increased depth of invasion in younger population as compared to elderly population and there is no association between age and extracapsular spread in patients. Majority of patients were found to have moderately differentiated oral cancer. Keywords: oral squamous cell carcinoma; extra capsular spread; depth of invasion; head and neck neoplasms.