Competing Causes of Death in 138 Patients with Loco-Regionally Advanced Head and Neck Cancer Treated with Multi-Modality Treatment

Abstract

Introduction: The goal of this study was to analyze the causes of death in patients with loco-regionally advanced squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) of the head and neck treated with multimodality treatment. Materiel: The mortality records of 138 advanced head and neck patients treated in our department with surgery and adjuvant (chemo) radiotherapy from 2007 to 2013 were collected and reviewed in this study. Results: From May 2007 to January 2013, 138 patients were followed up with a median follow-up duration of 25 months. The 5-year overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) were 45%, and 56.1%, respectively. A total of 39 patients (28%) died during the follow-up period. Clearly, in this population, loco-regional relapse accounted for one of the most cause of death but acute and late or chronic treatment-associated causes leading to death occurred in almost 8% of the patients. Furthermore, the risk of death from head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) was greater in patients with hypopharynx cancer. Univariate analysis indicated that patients with N2b disease and above and vascular tumor embolism had a lower overall survival (p = 0.001 and p = 0.007 respectively). The multivariate analysis showed that N2b disease and above was an independent prognostic factor for poorer loco-regional control (p = 0.001). Conclusions: Patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer treated with surgery and adjuvant (chemo) radiotherapy are potentially curable but face significant risks of mortality from causes other than disease progression.