Comparison of survival outcomes between adolescent and young adults and older adults with tongue squamous cell carcinoma: a nationwide database study using the head and neck cancer registry of Japan

Background This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic outcome for adolescent and young adult (AYA) generation patients with tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC). Methods Data were obtained from the Head and Neck Cancer Registry of Japan, and patients who were newly diagnosed with TSCC from 2011 to 2014 were extracted. We compared the clinical parameter and survival of the ≤ 39 years old (AYA) patient group with the 40–79 (non-AYA) group. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used for survival analyses. Results Our cohort included 2221 patients with TSCC. AYA and non-AYA groups consisted of 258 and 1963 patients, respectively. The AYA group has a larger proportion of females than the non-AYA group ( P < 0.001). Following PSM, both overall and disease-specific survival of the AYA group was significantly longer than those of the non-AYA group ( P = 0.009 and P = 0.04, respectively). Conclusion We demonstrated the survival superiority of AYA patients with TSCC compared to older adult patients. Therefore, our study results may reduce this anxiety by providing patients with appropriate information of prognosis for AYA patients with TSCC.