Pipkorn P, et al. - Whether symptoms and clinical variables can predict prognosis in recurrent head and neck cancer was investigated in this retrospective cohort study. In these patients, clinical variables were correlated with anticipated outcomes.

Methods

• Participants in the study were patients treated for head and neck cancer with curative intent at Siteman Cancer Center in St Louis, Missouri (a tertiary cancer center) between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2014.
• October 2016 to June 2017 were the dates of data analysis.
• Patients who developed a recurrent cancer were recruited, with 196 patients meeting inclusion criteria.
• Symptoms and clinical findings at presentation of recurrence were recorded.
• Researchers used sequential sequestration and conjunctive consolidation (two multivariable techniques) to create a composite staging system to predict 1-year overall survival (OS).

Results

• The study results showed that 1-year OS was 58.2% (114 of 196 patients) among 196 patients (mean [SD] age, 61 [11] years; 166 [84.7%] of white race/ethnicity; 76.5% male).
• Findings revealed that time to recurrence, symptom severity stage, and rTNM stage were consolidated into a 3-category Clinical Severity Staging System, with 1-year OS rates of 90.2% (95% CI, 82.7%-97.6%) for the 61 subjects classified as A, 58.1% (95% CI, 47.7%-68.6%) for the 86 subjects classified as B, and 18.4% (95% CI, 7.5%-29.2%) for the 49 subjects classified as C.
• As compared to the American Joint Committee on Cancer classification (C = 0.79 vs C = 0.66), the discriminative power of the new composite staging was better.