The five‐year outcome and its associated prognostic factors of head and neck cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma in Chinese

Background The incidence of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) in the Asian is low but on a steady rising trend. There is a lack of reporting of the long-term outcome in this population. Methods Patients with head and neck cSCC were identified in a regional hospital over 20 years. Five-year overall survival was estimated with Kaplan-Meier curve and its prognostic risk factors were analysed using Cox proportional hazard regression. Results Seventy-three patients were identified. The median age was 84. The 5-year overall survival rate was 40.3%. A higher grade of differentiation (HR 3.732, 95% CI 1.161-11.991, p= 0.027) was a significant prognostic factor on both univariate and multivariate analyses. Conclusion In this Asian cSCC survival series specific to the head and neck region which are mostly octogenarians, the 5-year overall-survival was low and a poor grade of differentiation was associated with a worse survival. Further studies on the Asian population is warranted.