Cause of death during nasopharyngeal carcinoma survivorship: a population-based analysis

Jie Zhou; Zhenyu Jiang; Yunhao Li; Xuwen Shao; Haihong Liao

doi:10.3389/fonc.2023.1269118

Cause of death during nasopharyngeal carcinoma survivorship: a population-based analysis

Front Oncol. 2023 Oct 18:13:1269118. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1269118. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Jie Zhou¹, Zhenyu Jiang², Yunhao Li¹, Xuwen Shao³, Haihong Liao¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Oncology, Huzhou Central Hospital, Affiliated Central Hospital Huzhou University, Huzhou, China.
² Department of Nephrology, The First People's Hospital of Huzhou, First Affiliated Hospital of Huzhou University, Huzhou, China.
³ Department of Physical Examination Center, Zhejiang Xinda Hospital, Huzhou, China.

Abstract

Background: Recently, the survival rate of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients has improved greatly due to developments in NPC treatments. But cause-specific mortality in NPC patients remains unclear. This study aims to investigate the common causes of death in NPC patients.

Methods: Eligible patients with NPC were included from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Standardized mortality ratios(SMRs) were calculated to compare death rates in NPC patients with those in the general population.

Results: A total of 3475 patients with NPC were included, of whom 1696 patients died during the follow-up period. 52.83% of deaths were caused by NPC, followed by other cancers (28.13%) and non-cancer causes (18.46%). The proportion of patients who died of NPC decreased over survival time. Moreover, non-cancer causes of death increase from 12.94% to 51.22% over time after 10 years of diagnosis. Heart diseases was the most common non-cancer cause of death in NPC patients.

Conclusions: Although NPC remains the leading cause of death after NPC diagnosis, other non-NPC causes of death represent an increased number of death in NPC patients. These findings support the involvement of multidisciplinary care for follow-up strategy in NPC patients.

Keywords: SEER; cause of death; nasopharyngeal carcinoma; standardized mortality ratios (SMRs); survival.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.