Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to describe the survival of patients diagnosed with oral cavity cancer in Germany. The analyses relied on data from eleven population-based cancer registries in Germany covering a population of 33 million inhabitants. Patients with a diagnosis of oral cavity cancer (ICD-10: C00-06) between 1997 and 2006 are included. Period analysis for 2002–2006 was applied to estimate five-year age-standardized relative survival, taking into account patients' sex as well as grade and tumor stage. Overall five-year relative survival for oral cavity cancer patients was 54.6%. According to tumor localization, five-year survival was 86.5% for lip cancer, 48.1% for tongue cancer and 51.7% for other regions of the oral cavity. Differences in survival were identified with respect to age, sex, tumor grade and stage. The present study is the first to provide a comprehensive overview on survival of oral cavity cancer patients in Germany.
Highlights
Oral cavity cancer is one of the more frequent cancer types worldwide [1,2]
The percentage of death certificate only (DCO) cases was 7.3% and the percentage of histologically confirmed oral cavity cancer cases amounted to 99.0%
The pattern in survival with respect to age, sex, stage, and grade was comparable with the pattern described for the group ‘‘other unspecified parts of the mouth’’ including cancer in the floor of the mouth (ICD-10 C04). This comprehensive population-based study provides detailed and up-to-date data on oral cavity cancer survival in Germany, relying on data of over 15,000 patients diagnosed with oral cavity cancer in 1997–2006 from an underlying population of 33 million people
Summary
Oral cavity cancer is one of the more frequent cancer types worldwide [1,2]. According to ICD-10, oral cavity cancer includes cancer of the lip (ICD-10: C00), cancer of the tongue (ICD-10: C01-02), and cancer within other regions of the oral cavity (ICD10: C03-06). Amongst Europeans, the lifetime risk of developing oral and pharyngeal cancer was recently estimated to be 1.85% for men and 0.37% for women [4]. Despite recent clinical improvements of diagnosis and treatment [6,7,8], the prognosis is still mostly dependent on the point of time at which oral cavity cancer is detected. Information about population level survival and their determining parameters is pivotal for public health decision makers who seek to understand how prevention and treatment of oral cavity cancer can further be improved. Population-based cancer survival analysis in Germany had to rely mostly on data from Saarland which includes about 1 million inhabitants, covering only about 1.3% of the total German population [10,11]. In international comparative studies (EUROCARE; EUNICE), Germany was only represented by Saarland and, sometimes, by the Munich Cancer registry [12,13]
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