Oropharyngeal Cancer in Israel: 1970-2006

Objectives: Oropharyngeal cancer is one of the few life-threatening oral diseases. It is more common in developing countries. Israel is characterized by a heterogeneous population, a high level of sun exposure, and a large proportion of faired skinned inhabitants. The purpose was to describe trends in incidence, mortality and survival rates of oropharyngeal cancer in Israel between 1970-2006.

Methods: The incidence and survival data derive from the National Cancer Registry and included all registered data between 1970 and 2006. Oropharyngeal cancer included lips, tongue, buccal mucosa, floor of the mouth, salivary glands and pharynx.

Results: Most diagnosed patients (69.1% from 11,843 cases) were above 55 years of age. The lip was the most common site (36.8%). The rate of total cancer cases decreased from 3.1 to 2.0 per 100 cancer cases between 1980-2002. The male:female cancer ratio decreased between two divided periods (1970-1987 and 1988-2006) from 1.7 to 1.3; the Jewish:Arab ratio decreased from 18.2 to 11.5; and the five year survival rates increased from 61.3% to 68% . Kaplan-Meier survival plots demonstrated that patients under the age of 20 yrs had almost half the survival rate than older groups and lip cancer had almost twice the survival rate than other sites.

Conclusions: Israel represents a developed country with relatively low percentage of alcohol consumption and high sun exposure. Data from this region demonstrated dissimilar and unique distributions in comparison to other "western" countries.