Comparative clinical outcomes of Taiwanese patients with resected buccal and tongue squamous cell carcinomas

Abstract Objectives Although patients with buccal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) usually show acceptable outcomes, local control and survival rates are generally lower than those observed for tongue SCC. This study was designed to compare the clinical outcomes of Taiwanese patients with these two common oral cavity malignancies. Methods Patients with first primary buccal or tongue SCC who were included in the Taiwanese Cancer Registry Database between 2004 and 2012 were eligible. The study sample consisted of 16,379 patients (7870 buccal SCC and 8509 tongue SCC) who received surgery with or without adjuvant therapy. The 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS) and overall survival (OS) rates served as the outcome measures. Results Compared with tongue SCC, patients with buccal SCC had a higher prevalence of males (95.7% vs. 86.4%, p p p p p  = 0.0297; and 71% vs. 69%, p  = 0.0231, respectively). Multivariate analysis identified tumor site (tongue vs. buccal SCC), sex (male vs. female), age (≥65 vs. Conclusions The survival advantage of buccal SCC over tongue SCC appears significant in large clinical samples, despite a higher prevalence of p-Stage IV disease in the former.