Clinical study of oral carcinomas in patients less than 40 years of age

Abstract

Between 1994 and 1999, 246 patients have received treatment for oral squamous cell carcinoma at the Tokai University Hospital. Twelve of them were young patients under the age of 40 years.
In this report, we clinically compared these young patients with older patients. In young patients, primary lesions were located mostly in the tongue. The 5-year survival rate was 62.5% in young patients and 74.0% in older patients. However the difference between both groups is not statistically significant, 5 of 12 patients have developed locoregional failure and 4 patients have died from their cancer. This result suggests that the control of tumor during initial treatment is more important for young patients.