Pattern and outcome of radiotherapy management of oral cancers in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital: a twenty four year experience

Abstract

Introduction: The incidence of oral cavity cancer is on the increase. Most cases present late resulting in poor prognosis of the disease. In the last few decades there has been an increasing trend of use of radiotherapy to treat oral cancers with improvement in survival. This retrospective study was aimed at determining the pattern of oral cancers seen at Radiotherapy Department of University College Hospital Ibadan and also to assess outcome of treatments offered over a period of 24 years. Methodology: Data extraction form was designed to obtain information from case notes and treatment records of patients with histologically diagnosed oral cavity cancer from 1987 to 2011 at the Radiotherapy clinic. The outcome of treatment at 6 months follow up was determined as either complete or partial/no clinical response. Symptom free interval was also determined for each patient. Results: A total of 88 patients with histologically diagnosed oral cavity cancer were analyzed. The mean age of presentation was 51.8 years with M:F ratio 1:8:1. The mean duration of symptoms was 13.4 months. All the patients in this study had radiotherapy. Complete clinical response was seen in 35 patients (39.8%) while partial and no response was observed in 53 (60.2%) patients. Patients who had radical doses of radiotherapy, early stage at presentation and multimodality treatment were found to have better outcome. Conclusion: Oral cancer patients present late in our environment, Radiotherapy in combination with other modalities of treatment have been found to have better outcome.