Estimation of Survival Rate of Esophageal Cancer and Some of its Determinants in Golestan Province, North of Iran

Golestan province in Iran has been known as a high risk area for esophageal cancer (EC). This study was conducted to assess the population-based survival rate in EC patients in Golestan province of Iran.

In a longitudinal study، 223 EC patients registered in Golestan population-based cancer registry in 2007 and 2008 were recruited. Kaplan-Meier method was performed to calculate median survival and log rank test was also used to compare survival rates between subgroups of variables. Multivariate Cox regression model was employed to determine adjusted hazard ratios (AHR) for different variables.

From 223 patient، 129 (57/8%) were male. The mean age of participants was 64/3 years. The median survival in our study was 11/08 months. Survival rates for 6، 12 and 36 months were 69%، 47% and 14%، respectively. The results of Cox regression analysis showed that the AHR for patients with metastasis stage (compared to those with localized stage) was 13. 89 (95% CI: 7/93-24/32) and the AHR for workers (compared to clerks) was 2. 4 (95% CI: 3/8-1/47).

Our results showed that survival rate of EC patients were higher than the rate reported in a previous study from this region. However the survival rate from this region seems still lower than those reported from developed countries. Implementation of appropriate screening programs in this region will result in early diagnosis of EC and consequently will increase survival rate in EC patients.