The impact of active follow-up on survival analysis of hypopharyngeal cancer

Abstract

When analyzing the survival rate of hypopharyngeal cancer, a higher rate than the true survival rate may be calculated if many patients cannot visit a hospital due to death. The active follow-up type （AFU） that involves contact with the patient and his/her family or physician to ascertain vital status in addition to medical records can calculate the survival rate with a higher accuracy than the passive follow-up type （PFU） that involves obtaining medical records only. In 2005-2014, we investigated 219 patients with hypopharyngeal cancer who received curative-intent treatment and analyzed the overall survival and censored cases at 5 years. The 5-year overall survival rate that was analyzed by AFU was 44.2％ and the 9-year overall survival rate was 31.3％. The 5-year overall survival rate by PFU was 46.6％ and the 9-year overall survival rate was 37.5％. PFU tended to have a higher survival rate with no significant difference. There was one censored case in AFU and 17 in PFU. The number of censored cases of AFU decreased, and we thus considered that AFU could calculate survival rate with higher accuracy than PFU.