Abstract Traditional guidelines for determining the
prognosis of
patients with
head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (
HNSCC) are used to make
therapeutic decisions. However, only 50% of the
patients had lived for more than five years. The present study aimed to analyze the correlation of traditional
prognostic factors such as
tumor size, histological grading, regional
metastases, and
treatment with the
survival of
patients with
HNSCC. A total of 78
patients diagnosed with
HNSCC were followed up for 10 years after
diagnosis and
treatment. The
health status of the
patients was tracked at four
time points, and according to the evolution of the
patients and their final clinical status, we performed a prognostic
analysis based on the clinical outcomes observed during the follow-up period. The final study cohort comprised 50
patients. Most
patients had
tumors < 4 cm in size (64%) and no regional
metastases (64%); no
patients had distant
metastases at the
time of
diagnosis. Most individuals had
tumors with good (48%) and moderate (46%) degrees of
malignancy. At the end of the follow-up period, only 14% of the
patients were discharged, 42% died of the
tumor, and 44% remained under
observation owing to the presence of a potentially malignant disorder,
relapse, or
metastases. This
analysis showed that traditional
prognostic factors were not accurate in detecting subclinical changes or predicting the
clinical evolution of
patients.