A clinical study of elderly patients over 75 years old with oral squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

As the aging society is advancing in Japan, the opportunity to treat oral squamous cell carcinoma in elderly patients is expected to increase. The aim of this study was to study the clinical features for patients over 75 years old with oral squamous cell carcinoma who underwent radical surgery. We performed radical surgery for 187 patients （86 males and 101 females） over 75 years old with oral squamous cell carcinoma who were treated in our department from 2005 to 2015. The most frequent site of the primary tumor was the gingiva （81 cases: 43.3％）, followed by the tongue （67 cases: 35.8％）. By classification of clinical stage, 61 cases were stage Ⅰ（32.6％）, 61 were stage Ⅱ（32.6％）, 28 were stageⅢ （15.0％）, and 37 were stage Ⅳa （19.8％）. One hundred and sixty-eight patients （88.8％） had systemic disease. We performed vascularized free flap transfer in 53 cases （28.3％）; the most used flap was the forearm flap （24 cases）, followed by the rectus abdominis flap （21 cases）. Total flap necrosis developed in one case with a rectus abdominis flap. The 5-year overall survival rate was 77.5％, and the 5-year disease-specific survival rate was 89.1％. In this study, we obtained good treatment outcomes by radical surgery. Considering that the possibility of postoperative complications and sequelae is small, we believe that radical surgery should be performed for elderly patients.