Key Points:
  1. Regional metastases in hypo-pharyngeal cancer such as lymphatic metastases are easy to be found at the time of tumor diagnosed. Though there is a high incidence rate of lymphatic metastases; the detection of distant metastases is still rare in hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma.
  2. 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. Although distant metastases in hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma are not common, they play an important role.
  3. Population-level estimates for prognosis among patients including newly diagnosed hypo-pharyngeal carcinoma and lung metastases or other organs’ metastases are extremely rare.
  4. Our study provides insight into the epidemiology of lung metastases in patients with newly diagnosed hypo-pharyngeal cancer.
  5. When the tumor is diagnosed, we should pay close attention to the sex, race, tumor size and histological grade in order to quickly detect the distant metastases.