Routine Endoscopy for Esophageal Cancer Is Suggestive for Patients with Oral, Oropharyngeal and Hypopharyngeal Cancer

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 8; no. 8; p. e72097
• Main Authors: Hung, Shih-Han, Tsai, Ming-Chieh, Liu, Tsai-Ching, Lin, Herng-Ching, Chung, Shiu-Dong
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 15.08.2013; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Alcohol; Alcohol use; Analysis; Biology; Cancer; Cancer patients; Cancer research; Carcinogens; Care and treatment; Confidence intervals; Cross-Sectional Studies; Diagnosis; Endoscopy; Esophageal cancer; Esophageal Neoplasms - diagnosis; Esophageal Neoplasms - epidemiology; Esophagoscopy; Esophagus; Female; Group dynamics; Health insurance; Health risk assessment; Health risks; Hospitals; Humans; Hypopharyngeal Neoplasms - diagnosis; Hypopharyngeal Neoplasms - epidemiology; Hypopharynx; Incidence; Male; Malignancy; Medical diagnosis; Medicine; Metastasis; Middle Aged; Mouth Neoplasms - diagnosis; Mouth Neoplasms - epidemiology; Neoplasms, Multiple Primary - diagnosis; Neoplasms, Multiple Primary - epidemiology; Neoplasms, Second Primary - diagnosis; Neoplasms, Second Primary - epidemiology; Oral cancer; Oral cavity; Oropharyngeal Neoplasms - diagnosis; Oropharyngeal Neoplasms - epidemiology; Oropharynx; Patients; Pharyngeal cancer; Population; Prevalence; Researchers; Risk Factors; Statistical analysis; Studies; Taiwan - epidemiology; Throat cancer; Tumors; Taiwan
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072097

This study attempted to reveal the incidence and risk of synchronous and metachronous esophageal cancer in subjects with oral, oropharyngeal and hypopharyngeal cancer based on a population-wide database in Taiwan. We retrieved data for this cross-sectional study from the Taiwanese Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2000. The study group included 2,965 subjects who had received their first-time diagnosis of oral/oropharyngeal/hypopharyngeal cancer in 2002∼2009. We assigned the date of their first diagnosis of oral/oropharyngeal/hypopharyngeal cancer as the index date. We also randomly retrieved 29,650 comparison subjects matched with the study subjects in terms of gender and age group. We assigned their first medical utilization that occurred in the index year as the index date for the comparison group. We further performed a conditional logistic regression to investigate the association between esophageal cancer and oral cancer. Results showed that prevalences of esophageal cancer within 3 months before and after the index date were respectively 2.19% and 0.04% for the study and comparison groups. A conditional logistic regression revealed that the odds ratio (OR) of esophageal cancer for subjects with oral/oropharyngeal/hypopharyngeal cancer was 55.33 (95% confidence interval (CI): 29.86∼102.52) compared to comparison subjects. Furthermore, compared to comparison subjects, ORs for esophageal cancer were respectively 18.41 (95% CI: 8.50-39.85), 40.49 (95% CI: 15.11∼108.64), and 240.96 (95% CI: 125.49-462.69) for study subjects with a malignancy of the oral cavity, oropharynx, and hypopharynx. We concluded that there were relatively high chances for synchronous and metachronous esophageal cancers being detected through panendoscopy in patients with oral, oropharyngeal, and hypopharyngeal cancers. The routine use of panendoscopy in such patients should be encouraged with a higher priority.