Introduction
Hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma is often difficult to be diagnosed in its
early stages because of its occulted incidence site. Regional metastases
such as lymphatic metastases are easy to be found at the time of tumor
diagnosed1. Though there is a high incidence rate of
lymphatic metastases; the detection of distant metastases is still rare
in hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma.
Only 8.5% patients were observed to have distant metastases in head and
neck squamous cell carcinoma. Among them, 16.3% of the patients
suffered from hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma. The metastatic organs are
relatively limited as reported: the lungs (77 %), bone (19 %),
mediastinal and other lymph nodes (4 %), as well as the brain,
liver1,2. Although distant metastases in
hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma are not common, they play an important role.
Lymphatic metastases are most often the cause of mortality due to
hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma1.
Population-level estimates for prognosis among patients including newly
diagnosed hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma and lung metastases or other organs’
metastases are extremely rare, however the incidence of lung metastases
or other organ metastases combined with hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma occurs
less frequently than newly diagnosed hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma. Data was
sourced from a single institution or case report. The purpose of this
study was to use the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)
database to characterize the incidence of lung metastases among patients
with hypo-pharyngeal cancer on a population-based level. We also
quantified survival estimates and assessed other potential risk factors
that influence survival among patients with hypo-pharyngeal cancer and
lung metastases present at the time diagnosis.