Prognostic Factors Related To Lip Cancer Assessment: a Systematic Review

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the factors that affect the prognosis of lip cancer. Asystematic literature review was conducted by entering the subject descriptions ‘lip cancer’, ‘cohort studies’, ‘review’, ‘prognosis’ and ‘survival analysis’ and the words cancer, lip, prognosis, follow, and cohort survival, in English, Spanish and Portuguese in the electronic databases Medline, Lilacs and BBO. The researched the period was from1966 to 2008. This search showed 510 articles of which 17 were selected. All designs were retrospective studies. Eight studies evaluated the clinical staging and pointed out that the advancement of such variable is a prognostic factor for lip cancer, 11 studies linked the increase in tumor size to survival reduction and/or adverse post-treatment outcomes increase (local and/or regional recurrence). Regarding the type of treatment, the studies do not indicate a consensus for the treatment to come to more favorable results. The involvement of surgical margins was predictive for an unfavorable prognosis in all analyzed studies. Thus, factors such as advanced clinical staging, tumors with large diameters and poorly differentiated prognostic factors are important predictors of lip cancer, becoming necessary to emphasize the implementation of health promoting activities for early detection of this disease by both patient and health care professional.