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Oral and oropharyngeal cancer in Colombia: an experience in a middle-income country cancer institute (2004–2013)

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Oral Cancer

Abstract

Aims

To provide demographical and clinical characteristics and estimations of 2-year overall survival (OS) of oral and oropharyngeal cancer (OOC) patients treated in the Colombian National Cancer Institute (INC) between 2004 and 2013.

Methods

All 1108 patients first treated at INC for OOC in the three periods, without a prior cancer diagnosis, were included in this study. The INC hospital-based cancer registry was cross-linked with governmental databases to obtain follow-up information on all patients. Probability of surviving 24 months since the date of entry at INC was estimated using Kaplan–Meier methods, using the log-rank test to evaluate differences between groups. In order to evaluate the relative effect of age, sex, clinical stage, anatomical site and type of health insurance on survival, we constructed a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model.

Results

The overall survival probability at 24 months was 48.2% (95% CI 45.3; 51.1), which was stable over time. Advanced age and clinical stage substantially affected overall survival, being 30.3% (95% CI 25.2; 35.4) for age > 70 and 34.7% (95% CI 29.4; 40.0) for stage IV disease. Hazard ratios were significantly higher for patients aged 70 and over [HR 1.99 (95% CI 1.41–2.79)] and advanced stage cancers [HR 2.16 (95% CI 1.55–3.01)], whereas patients with cancers of the tonsils or salivary glands had a strongly reduced risks compared to tongue and oral cavity cancer [HR 0.56 (95% CI 0.43–0.72)].

Conclusions

Oral and oropharyngeal cancer has a very poor prognosis which was stable over time. Considering the late stage at diagnosis, much can be gained by improving early detection and treatment.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jenny Patricia Castro and Juliana Valdivieso for their help in searching and updating the information of the hospital-based registry and linking the follow-up information with government sources.

Funding

This work was performed with financial support of the Instituto Nacional de Cancerología allocated to the Cancer Surveillance Program of this institution.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cancer Surveillance Group, Instituto Nacional de Cancerología, Cra 1, No 9-85, Piso 2, Bogotá, Colombia

    Constanza Pardo

  2. Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Hospital San Ignacio, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cra 7, No 40-62, Piso 2, Bogotá, Colombia

    Esther de Vries

Authors
  1. Constanza Pardo
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Contributions

CP and EV worked on the conception, design, analysis and interpretation of the data and writing and revision of the manuscript. Both authors approved the submitted version.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Esther de Vries.

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We have no conflicts of interests to declare.

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Pardo, C., de Vries, E. Oral and oropharyngeal cancer in Colombia: an experience in a middle-income country cancer institute (2004–2013). Oral Cancer 2, 19–26 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41548-018-0005-0

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