Prognostic factors for cancer of the oral cavity

Objective: A survival analysis was conducted on 101 patients with oral cancer to determine the influence of certain clinical and pathological parameters on survival. Methods: Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess survival and estimate hazard ratios adjusted for potential confounders. Results: Survival rates were influenced by tumor diameter (P = .030), clinical T (P = .028), clinical N (P = .019), clinical stage (P = .006), lymph node involvement (P = .003) and histologic malignancy grade (P = .0063). The multivariate analysis included only 1 variable, the lymph node involvement. For clinical stage, the mean histologic malignancy grade was 1.71, 2.27, 2.53, and 2.61, respectively, for stages I through IV (r s = 0.423, P <.001). Conclusion: This study proposes considering the tumor size as the most significant clinical variable for predicting the survival of oral cancer patients at the time of diagnosis and the degree of lymph node involvement after the treatment.