Trends in clinical features and survival of oral cavity cancer: fifty years of experience with 3,362 consecutive cases from a single institution

Global data demonstrate minimal improvement in the survival rate for oral cavity cancer (OCC) patients. We wished to know whether or not clinical features and survival rate have changed over time for OCC patients receiving initial treatment and follow-up at a large cancer center in China. Clinical features and survival data were collected on patients diagnosed during the successive decades of 1960-1969 (n=253), 1970-1979 (n=497), 1980-1989 (n= 659), 1990-1999 (n=793), and 2000-2009 (n=1,160) at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center. Over time, the overall 5-year survival rate for OCC patients was 52.0%. According to tumor localization, this rate was 71.4% for lip cancer, 56.3% for oral tongue cancer, and 42.7% for other parts of the oral cavity. From the 1960s to the 2000s, the 5-year survival rate steadily improved from 47.8% to 55.6% (