Oral squamous sell carcinoma in North-Eastern Hungary I. Epidemiology

The purpose of this study was to characterize the epidemiological data of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients in North-Eastern Hungary. The medical records of 119 randomly selected patients with OSCC admitted to the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery of the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Debrecen were reviewed. Cases were identified according to the epidemiological data, as to site, tumor size, lymph node involvement, clinical stage, histological differentiation, treatment obtained, recurrence of disease and survival rate. There was an obvious male predominance (male:female = 5.2:1). The median age at diagnosis was 57.4 years. The most common sites of OSCC were the floor of the mouth (27.7%), the lip (26.9%) and the tongue (22.7%). The majority of the patients (58,8%) presented with early-stage (I-II) disease at the time of diagnosis, and 48.6% had moderately differentiated tumors. The most frequent therapeutic modality used was surgery with or with out of radiotherapy. Roughly one fifth of the cases (20.7%) experienced a recurrence of disease during the follow-up period. The overall 5-year survival rate was 38.7% (stage I: 68.3%, stage II: 31.0%, stage III: 22.6%, stage IV: 11.1%). There was a correlation between survival and tumor size, lymph node metastasis, clinical stage and surgical treatment (p < or = 0.05, respectively). We found no significant correlation between histological differentiation and survival. Clinical stage exerts the most strongly significant impact on survival. Therefore, early detection and proper surgical intervention enhance patients' survival most effectively.