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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Oral. Health
Sec. Oral Cancers
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/froh.2024.1493319
This article is part of the Research Topic Multidisciplinary Management of Oral Cancer: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Rehabilitation View all articles

Multidisciplinary tumor boards in oral cavity cancer: Survival effect due to balancing guideline adherence and treatment delays

Provisionally accepted
Valentin Burkhardt Valentin Burkhardt 1*Katharina El-Shabrawi Katharina El-Shabrawi 1Sarah Riemann Sarah Riemann 1Pit Voss Pit Voss 2Christoph Becker Christoph Becker 1
  • 1 Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, University of Freiburg Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany
  • 2 Department of Oral and Craniomaxillofacial Surgery, Medical Center – University of Freiburg, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Germany., Freiburg, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of a pretherapeutic Multidisciplinary Tumor Board (MTB) presentation on the prognosis and treatment outcomes in patients with primary oral cavity carcinoma.This single-center study included 630 patients diagnosed with oral cavity carcinoma treated between 2010 and 2020. The study cohort was divided in a group with and without pretherapeutic MTB presentation. Data on patient demographics, tumor characteristics, treatment and the time to treatment initiation (TTI) were collected retrospectively.Primary findings revealed no significant difference in 3-year survival rate (3-YSR) and 3-year diseasefree survival rate (3-YDFSR) for the non-MTB and MTB group. The 3-YSR was 73.1% in the non-MTB group and 67.1% in the MTB group (p=0.112). The 3-YDFSR was 73.8% in the non-MTB group and 76.5% in the MTB group (p=0.447). Estimated mean 5-year survival (5-YS) and 5-year diseasefree survival in (5-YDFS) did not differ significantly between both groups, across the UICC stages I-IV, as well as for the entire cohort. The TTI was significantly longer in the MTB group (33.5 days, CI: 31.3;35.7) compared to the non-MTB group (20.1 days, CI: 17.9;22.4, p<0.001). The MTB group adhered more frequently to the national guidelines (68% vs. 79.6%, p<0.01).The results demonstrate both positive and negative side effects of the MTB presentation in patients with oral cavity cancer. Further multicenter studies will be required to assess the impact of TTI and adherence to guidelines on the survival of oral cavity cancer patients.

    Keywords: Oral cavity cancer, multidisciplinary tumor board, survival analaysis, Time to treatment, head and necek squamous cell carcinoma, head and neck cancer

    Received: 08 Sep 2024; Accepted: 28 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Burkhardt, El-Shabrawi, Riemann, Voss and Becker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Valentin Burkhardt, Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, University of Freiburg Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany

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