Background: Cohabitation and social conditions predict prognosis in several cancers; recent data suggest this might also be the case in penile cancer.
Objective: To assess the prognostic significance of cohabitation, living arrangements and socio-economic conditions for cancer-specific survival (CSS) in patients with penile squamous cell carcinoma (pSCC).
Methods: We retrospectively evaluated CSS in 429 pSCC patients from a 10-year period. We assessed cohabitation, living arrangements and socio-economic conditions(SEC) as prognostic predictors. Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox hazard rates (HR) with 95% confidence intervals were used for analysis.
Results: Out of 429 pSCC patients, 137 (32%) were living alone and 292 (68%) were cohabiting. With a Cox HR at 1.91 (95% CI 1.3-2.98) patients living alone had a significantly lower median five-year survival rate at 69% (95% CI 60-77%) compared to cohabiting patients at 83% (95% CI 78-87%), p = 0.002. Comparing 60 (14%) from higher to 202 (47%) from medium and 95 (22%) patients from lower socio-economic groups we found Cox HRs at 1, 2.4 (95% CI 1.0-5.7, p = 0.04) and 3.4 (95% CI 1.4-8.1, p < 0.01) respectively. When comparing living arrangements, the trend that patients living in apartments and institutions had poorer outcomes than patients living in a house did not reach statistical significance.
Conclusions: Living alone and in poor socio-economic conditions predict poor prognosis in penile cancer in this national study. We make the case for further research in efforts to minimize cancer inequality pSCC patients.
Keywords: Penile cancer; cancer-specific survival; cohabitation; living arrangements; penile squamous cell carcinoma (pSCC); socio-economic conditions (SEC).