OBJECTIVE

evaluating the impact of anemia and body mass index (BMI) on survival, and development of a prognostic model for overall survival for patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A retrospective cohort study was performed including all consecutive patients with LSCC diagnosed and treated at the Erasmus Medical Center between January 2006 and December 2013. Patient- and tumor-specific data were collected using data from the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization and supplemented with data from patient records available in the Erasmus MC. All comorbidities were scored at the time of diagnosis.

RESULTS

in total 788 patients were included. Mean follow-up time was 50 months (SD: ±30), during which 298 patients (37.8%) died. In both univariate and multivariate analysis BMI and anemia were significant predictors for overall survival. Multivariate analysis was performed using known predictors such as age, TNM-stage and comorbidity (ACE-27). The hazard ratio of anemia was 1.41 (95% CI: 1.05-1.90) and of BMI was 0.97 (95% CI: 0.94-0.99). BMI had an inverse association with overall survival in both univariate and multivariate survival analysis. Updating and validating an existing prognostic model with addition of anemia and BMI enhanced the performance of the prognostic model (C-statistic) from 0.77 (95% CI: 0.74-0.79) to 0.79 (95% CI: 0.77-0.82).

CONCLUSION

anemia and BMI are predictors of overall survival for LSCC, independent of other known predictors of overall survival. Adding anemia and BMI to an existing prognostic model provides better prediction of overall survival.