Clinical and epidemiological characterization of head and neck cancer at the Celia Sánchez Manduley Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: cancer is a public health problem with increasing morbidity, mortality and incidence rates, representing almost 30% of head and neck tumors, and it has been reported as the sixth most common cancer.Objective: to characterize clinical and epidemiological head and neck cancer in the "Celia Sánchez Manduley" Clinical Surgical Teaching Hospital.Method: a descriptive, retrospective, cross-sectional study was carried out in the period from January 2013 to December 2017. The universe of our study consisted of 171 patients. Variables such as: age, sex, risk factors, symptoms and signs, anatomical location and degree of differentiation were studied.Results: of the study population, there was a predominance of the age group between 60 and 69 years (39.1%) and the male sex (81.2%), the risk factors were smoking and alcoholism, with 45.6 % and 36.8% respectively. The most frequent symptom was dysphonia (36.8%), the affected anatomical location was the larynx, at the glottis site (31.5%) and the degree of differentiation was well differentiated (49.7%).Conclusions: head and neck cancer has a high incidence in patients over 60 years of age, smoking and alcoholism were the most frequent risk factors. The most affected anatomical location was the larynx and well-differentiated squamous cell carcinoma prevailed. This behaved similar to the literature consulted. It is important to encourage promotion and prevention programs for head and neck cancer.