Weekly PFI-2 Wrap Up Is Certainly Starting To Feel A Little Out Of Date

Because of small sample sizes, although informative, the data for nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) and hypopharyngeal cancer are presented only in the descriptive tables and below (see Results) but are not discussed. The 38 patients who had cancers of the paranasal sinus and major salivary glands were excluded from the analysis because of the small numbers. Bivariate analyses were performed by site to determine the association between tumor characteristics and clinical, nonclinical, and treatment variables. Follow-up was available through December 31, 2008. The sample weights, calculated as the inverse of the sampling proportion for each sampling stratum, were used to obtain estimates that were representative of all eligible patients with HNC in the study areas. For all analyses, we used the statistical software SUDAAN (Research http://www.selleckchem.com/products/MG132.html Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, NC), which allows the use of sample weights and adjusts the standard errors appropriately. Because of small cell sizes, when we examined the sequencing of radiation and chemotherapy, we provided unweighted percentages. We examined the factors associated with all-cause and cancer-specific mortality in a Cox proportional hazard model. All tests were 2-sided. Demographic characteristics varied by tumor site. http://www.selleckchem.com/products/epacadostat-incb024360.html Here, we summarize the main findings presented in Table 1. The age distribution was older for patients with laryngeal cancer (52% were aged ��65 years), whereas oropharyngeal cancer had the lowest percentage of patients aged ��65 years, and NPC had the greatest percentage of patients aged http://www.selleck.cn/products/pfi-2.html end of 2008. The tumor characteristics varied by cancer site (Table 1). Patients with hypopharyngeal cancer were diagnosed more often with stage IV disease (57%) than patients with cancer of any other site. Greater than 60% of patients with oral cavity cancer or laryngeal cancer had well differentiated or moderately well differentiated tumors, while 66% of patients with NPC had poorly differentiated or undifferentiated tumors. The majority of patients had no lymph nodes examined regardless of disease site. This refers to the cumulative number of all regional lymph nodes examined during surgeries in the first course of therapy. For most patients with cancer of the oral cavity, surgery was the main intervention, and patients underwent surgery either alone for stage I/II disease (64%), in combination with radiation for stage III disease(46%), or with radiation and chemotherapy for stage IV disease (34%) (Table 2).