The Impact of Cancer Concealment on Postoperative Esophageal Cancer Patients in Stage T3: A Propensity Scores Matching Analysis

Abstract

\n Background\n\nEsophageal cancer has a poor prognosis and high mortality rate, and the overall five-year survival rate is pretty low. In addition to medical factors, some psychological and sociological factors can also contribute to it.\nMethods\n\nWe selected postoperative T3 esophageal cancer patients hospitalized from June 2015 to December 2016 as research subjects, and divided them into a cancer-awareness group and a cancer-concealment group. Several variables are allowed for evaluating 36-month progress-free survival of the two groups. Propensity Scores Matching analysis were used to adjust selection bias.\nResults\n\nThere were 72 patients enrolled in the study. Sex and cancer concealment were significantly predicted poor survival while stage, pathological differentiation, education background and age were not (P\u2009=\u20090.017, 0.020, 0.302, 0.177, 0.068, 0.054, respectively). Cox multivariate regression analysis shows sex and cancer concealment were independent predictors of progress-free survival of esophageal cancer at postoperative T3 stage (harzard ratio\u2009=\u20090.264, 95% confidence interval: 0.099–0.703, P\u2009=\u20090.008; harzard ratio\u2009=\u20092.823, 95% confidence interval: 1.360–5.861, P\u2009=\u20090.005, respectively).\nConclusions\n\nCancer concealment is an important negative predictors of postoperative esophageal cancer patients progress-free survival.