Head and neck cancer, epidemiology and histological aspects - Part 1: a decade's results 1993-2002.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES

Studies prior to 1990 showed an incidence of 5% for oral and maxillofacial cancer in Romania. In this paper (Part 1) an evaluation of malignant tumour cases, covering a 10-year period is made regarding histological forms, the relationships of malignant tumours to patients' geographic origin, environment, age, gender of patients and lymph node involvement.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

From 1485 patients with malignant oral and maxillofacial tumours, 1072 cases fulfilled the criteria for inclusion in this study. The following data were examined: patients' charts and medical records as well as pathology reports.

RESULTS

From 16,315 patients admitted to this hospital between 1993 and 2002, 9% presented with primary ('de novo') malignant tumours; 2/3 were male patients; average age at presentation was 61 years for males and 59 years for females; 47% presented with stage IV tumours; out of the 'de novo' tumours, 93% were carcinomas and 4% sarcomas; 56% of patients had positive lymph nodes at presentation.

CONCLUSIONS

The number of head and neck cancer cases increased in the last 15 years; almost half of the patients presented with tumours in stage IV.