Surgery, radiation yield similar efficacy for early squamous cell carcinoma of lip

Both surgery and radiation therapy were beneficial methods of treating early-stage lip squamous cell carcinoma, according to findings presented at the American Academy of Dermatology virtual meeting.

Kevin Phan, MD, of the dermatology department at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, Australia, and Mahmoud Dibas, MD, of Sulaiman Al Rajhi Colleges, College of Medicine, Saudi Arabia, sought to examine the survival rates in low-stage lip squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) between patients who had surgery alone and patients who had radiation therapy alone.

“Squamous cell carcinoma of the lip composes 25% to 30% of all oral cancers,” the authors wrote. “Lip SCC is often detected at an early stage, due to the highly visible location and slow growth pattern.”

Results from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database between 2010 and 2014 were analyzed. Overall survival and cancer-specific survival were measured.

The researchers identified 900 patients with early-stage lip SCC who had received either radiation alone (36 patients) or surgery alone (864 patients).

Patients who underwent surgical procedures had better overall survival and cancer-specific survival rates compared with patients who had radiation alone, the study found. The treatment modality did not have a significant effect on either survival rate; the radiation-alone group had an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.94 (95% CI; 0.83-4.53), while the surgery-alone group had an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.04 (95% CI; 0.07-15.55).

“Our results support the notion that surgery and [radiation therapy] appear to be equally effective in treating early-stage lip SCC,” the researchers wrote.