Objective: This study investigated the clinical and prognostic characteristics of head and neck cancer in patients with esophagus cancer. Methods: Information on 124 patients with head and neck cancer with esophagus cancer was collected from head and neck and thoracic surgery departments between January 2007 and December 2016 in Zhejiang Cancer Hospital. The incidence of synchronous and metachronous cancer was described. The clinical characteristics and prognosis were also compared in synchronous and metachronous cancer. The number of hospitalization and different treatments were analyzed the affection on the survival time. Results: 32 cases were synchronous cancer and 72 cases were metachronous cancer. The rate of surgery and the number of hospitalization were significantly different in synchronous and metachronous cancer (χ2=4.661; P<.05). The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year survival rates were 39.9%, 19.9%, and15.2%, respectively in patients with synchronous cancer and the mean survival time was 18.4±6.2 months. In contrast, the survival rates were 78.7%, 77.8%, and 59.1% respectively in metachronous cancer and the mean survival time was 122.2±17.2 months. There was a significant difference between the 2 groups (χ2=10.934; P=.001). The number of hospitalizations greater than or equal to 5 times were significantly different from those with less than 5 times (χ2=10.574; P=.001). There was no statistically significant difference in the improvement of OS by single operation, chemotherapy, and target treatment. The P value was only slightly less than .05 in the radiation therapy. Conclusions: Head and neck cancer in patients with esophagus cancer have a high survival rate through active combined-modality therapies, especially in metachronous carcinoma.
Impact of age at diagnosis of head and neck cancer on incidence of metachronous cancer