Project description:ImportanceDefinitive chemoradiotherapy and upfront surgical treatment are both accepted as the standard of care for advanced-stage oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. However, the optimal primary treatment modality remains unclear.ObjectiveTo evaluate the comparative effectiveness of definitive chemoradiotherapy and upfront surgical treatment for advanced-stage oropharyngeal cancer.Design, setting, and participantsThis retrospective comparative effectiveness analysis used data from the population-based Taiwan Cancer Registry. Included patients were diagnosed with clinical stage III or IV oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma from 2007 to 2015 and were identified from the registry. Patients with T4b or N3 disease were excluded. Data were analyzed from June 2019 through December 2020.InterventionsDefinitive chemoradiotherapy or upfront surgical treatment.Main outcomes and measuresThe primary outcome was overall survival, for which data were available through December 31, 2018. Secondary outcomes were progression-free survival, locoregional recurrence-free survival, and distant metastasis-free survival.ResultsAmong 1180 patients, 694 patients (58.8%) were in the definitive chemoradiotherapy group and 486 patients (41.2%) were in the upfront surgical treatment group. The median (interquartile range) follow-up was 3.62 (1.63-5.47) years, and most patients were men (1052 [89.1%] men) with a primary tumor in the tonsils (712 patients [60.3%]), moderately differentiated histology (604 patients [51.2%]), clinical N2 disease (858 patients [72.7%]), and clinical stage IVA disease (938 patients [79.5%]). The mean (SD) age was 54.59 (10.35) years. Primary treatment with an upfront surgical procedure was associated with a decreased risk of death during the study period (hazard ratio [HR], 0.81; 95% CI, 0.69-0.97; P = .02). However, when adjusted for age, subsite, histological grade, and T and N classification, upfront surgical treatment was no longer associated with an increased risk of death during the study period (HR, 0.96; 95% CI, 0.80-1.16; P = .70). Progression-free survival was worse in the group receiving upfront surgical treatment than in the group receiving chemoradiotherapy (HR, 1.64; 95% CI, 1.09-2.46; P = .02), and this difference persisted after adjusting for other factors associated with prognosis (ie, age, tumor subsite, histological grade, and T and N classification) (HR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.12-2.66; P = .01).Conclusions and relevanceThis study found that definitive chemoradiotherapy was associated with effectiveness that was comparable with that of upfront surgical treatment when adjusted for baseline factors associated with prognosis. These findings suggest that definitive chemoradiotherapy should be considered to avoid accumulating toxic effects associated with surgical treatment and chemoradiotherapy.

Project description:ImportanceTransoral robotic surgery has been widely adopted since approval by the US Food and Drug Administration in December 2009, despite limited comparative data.ObjectiveTo compare the long-term outcomes of transoral robotic surgery with those of nonrobotic surgery for patients with early-stage oropharyngeal cancer.Design, setting, and participantsA retrospective cohort comparative effectiveness analysis was performed of patients in the National Cancer Database with clinical T1 and T2 oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma diagnosed between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2015, who underwent definitive robotic and nonrobotic surgery. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis and propensity score matching were performed in patients with known human papillomavirus status to adjust for patient- and disease-related covariates. Survival after robotic and nonrobotic surgery was also compared in 3 unrelated cancers: prostate, endometrial, and cervical cancer. Statistical analysis was performed from April 10, 2019, to May 21, 2020.Main outcomes and measuresOverall survival.ResultsOf 9745 patients (7652 men [78.5%]; mean [SD] age, 58.8 [9.6] years) who met inclusion criteria, 2694 (27.6%) underwent transoral robotic surgery. There was a significant increase in the use of robotic surgery from 18.3% (240 of 1309) to 35.5% (654 of 1841) of all surgical procedures for T1 and T2 oropharyngeal cancers from 2010 to 2015 (P = .003). Robotic surgery was associated with lower rates of positive surgical margins (12.5% [218 of 1746] vs 20.3% [471 of 2325]; P < .001) and lower use of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (28.6% [500 of 1746] vs 35.7% [831 of 2325]; P < .001). Among 4071 patients with known human papillomavirus status, robotic surgery was associated with improved overall survival compared with nonrobotic surgery in multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression (hazard ratio [HR], 0.74; 95 CI, 0.61-0.90; P = .002). Similar results were seen when analyzing only the subset of facilities offering both robotic and nonrobotic surgery. The 5-year overall survival was 84.8% vs 80.3% among patients undergoing robotic vs nonrobotic surgery in propensity score-matched cohorts (P = .001). By contrast, there was no evidence that robotic surgery was associated with improved survival in other cancers, such as prostate cancer (HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.79-1.07; P = .26), endometrial cancer (HR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.90-1.04; P = .36), and cervical cancer (HR, 1.27; 95% CI, 0.96-1.69; P = .10).Conclusions and relevanceThis study suggests that transoral robotic surgery was associated with improved surgical outcomes and survival compared with nonrobotic surgery in patients with early-stage oropharyngeal cancer. Evaluation in comparative randomized trials is warranted.

Project description:Nowadays, risk stratification for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) is based on HPV status, tobacco smoking, and tumor stage. Although HPV positivity represents a strong prognostic factor for both reduced risk of relapse, and improved survival, there is a subset of HPV-positive OPSCC patients who still experience poor outcomes. Furthermore, HPV-negative OPSCC patients, who have an even higher risk of relapse within two years from the end of the treatment, are still lacking suitable prognostic biomarkers for clinical outcome. In this scenario, inclusion of new biomarkers that differentiate OPSCC patients with a diverse prognosis is urgently needed. Since genes encoding for epigenetic regulators have been frequently found mutated in several tumors, including OPSCC, it is expected that epigenetic changes may play a major role in OPSCC pathogenesis and response to therapy. Consistently, HPV oncoproteins have been also demonstrated to impact on epigenetic pattern by interacting with different epigenetic regulators, thus affecting the chromatin landscape of OPSCC HPV-positive cells. Along this line, we have recently demonstrated the methylation levels of the “Long interspersed nucleotide element-1” (LINE-1) repetitive elements, a widely accepted surrogate of overall genomic DNA methylation content, was different between HPV16-positive and -negative OPSCC patients. In particular, the lowest level of LINE-1 element methylation was observed in HPV16-negative OPSCC patients who relapsed within 24 months, thus indicating the overall level of genomic DNA methylation may have an impact on early OPSCC relapse risk. Despite these promising initial data, the influence of LINE1 methylation levels on OPSCC survival is not yet well defined. We retrospectively reviewed a cohort of 156 patients with stage III–IVB (AJCC TNM 7th Ed.) OPSCC. Forty patients were diagnosed and treated at Treviso Regional Hospital, and 116 at National Cancer Institute of Aviano and/or Pordenone Hospital. All patients were managed with curative intent with elective radiotherapy ± chemotherapy or surgery ± adjuvant (chemo)radiotherapy, in accordance with current clinical practice. Genomic DNA was extracted from OPSCC formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues. The quantification of HPV16 DNA was performed by real-time quantitative PCR by using specific primers for the amplification of a region spanning the E6 genes of the HPV16 genome, whereas the methylation status of LINE1 repetitive sequences was evaluated by real-time quantitative Methylation-Specific PCR. The impact of genome-wide methylation patterns on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) was assessed using Kaplan-Meier analyses. Optimal cut-points for LINE-1 were search through a recursive algorithm which estimates the predictive value for PFS (Harrell's c-index) for each possible couple of LINE-1 values; optimal cut-points were defined as those which maximized Harrell's c-index. Multivariate hazard risk (HR) and corresponding confidence intervals (CI) were calculated according to Cox proportional hazard model adjusting for gender, age, TNM stage, and HPV status.The median follow up was 30 months (interquartile range: 17-72 months) Considering all cases, PFS and OS were respectively 64.6% and 71.8% at 2 years, and 49.5% and 53.7% at 5 years. HPV DNA prevalence was 28.8% (45/156). Compared to HPV-negative patients, HPV-positive ones had a better outcome in terms of PFS at 2 (81.0% vs. 58.2%) and 5 years (70.9% vs 41.6%; p=0.003), as well as in terms of OS (5-year OS: 74.1 vs. 45.9%, respectively; p=0.003). LINE-1 methylation level was significantly higher in HPV-positive OPSCC patients than in HPV-negative ones (median, 66.9% and 48.7% respectively; p<0.001). Three patterns of LINE-1 methylation status were indentified according to PFS: high ≥55%, medium 35-54%, low <35%. The same cut-points were identified from the analysis on OS. Analyzing all patients, PFS at 2 years was 75.9% in the high methylation group, 62.0% in the intermediate group, and 41.6% in the low methylation group (p≤0.001). Compared to LINE-1≥55%, multivariate HR were 1.66 (95% CI: 0.92-2.99) for LINE-1 35-54% and 2.84 (95% CI: 1.51-5.37) for LINE-1<35%. Moreover, OS at 2 and 5 years was significantly better in the high methylation group (p<0.001), with HRs of death similar to those for PFS. It is worth noting that the level of LINE-1 remained a prognostic factor for both PFS (p= 0.004) and of OS (p=0.011) when we restricted the analysis to HPV-negative patients. Among these patients, the multivariate HRs for LINE-1<35% were 2.87 (95% CI: 1.49-5.52) for PFS and 2.86 (1.43-5.74) for OS. In HPV-positive group, respect to patients with LINE-1 <55%, cases with a LINE-1≥55% have had better trend in terms of PFS and OS, but this difference was not statistically significant (p=0.112; p= 0.113), mainly due to small sample size. Between HPV-positive patients, only one had a methylation of LINE-1 < 35%. LINE-1 methylation has been identified as a molecular marker of prognosis for stage III-IV OPSCC patients, becoming a promising biomarker to be integrated in current prognostic factors (e.g., stage, HPV status, tobacco smoking) to refine the comprehensive clinical management of OPSCC. This is of particular clinical relevance for HPV-positive OPSCC patients, since this marker may help in indentify the subset of these patients with bad prognosis. However, further validation in a prospective study is needed for its application in daily clinical practice.

Dataset Information

Delay in referral of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma to secondary care correlates with a more advanced stage at presentation, and is associated with poorer survival.

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