Background: To assess clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic value of age stratification on overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) for stage IV oral tongue squamous cell carcinoma.
Methods: A total of 1357 patients were extracted from the SEER database between 2010 and 2014.
Results: Younger patients tended to be male and present with advanced N classification and advancing age increases the risk of cancer related death. Subgroups analysis shows that the effect of advancing age was significantly associated with a higher risk of poor survival in non-Asian who harbored T2/T3/T4a, N2b/N2c or non-metastatic disease (all p < 0.05).
Conclusions: In high-risk patients, tumor characteristics rather than age should be considered when making treatment decisions.
Keywords: Oral tongue squamous cell carcinomas; age stratification; clinicopathological characteristics; prognosis; stage IV.