Diagnosis of second primary tumor and long-term survival after single initial triple endoscopy in patients with head and neck cancer

Patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the upper aerodigestive tract (UADT) have a high risk of developing second primary tumors (SPTs). Most of the studies concerning triple endoscopy (laryngoscopy, digestive tract endoscopy and bronchoscopy) describe the frequency and stage of the SPT, but not its impact on survival. This study is a matched pair analysis that included patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the UADT who were subjected to a triple endoscopy before the first treatment, matched with patients who did not undergo triple endoscopy. One hundred and thirty-five patients were included in each group. The diagnosis of an SPT was more frequent in the initial triple endoscopy group than in the control group (34 and 20 cases, respectively). In the initial triple endoscopy group, 50.0 % of these tumors were diagnosed simultaneously, whereas in the control, only 5.0 %. No significant differences in the survival rates or in clinical stage of the SPTs were found in the two groups. There was no difference in the clinical stage of the SPT and the survival rates of the patient groups who underwent triple endoscopy at the initial evaluation and those subjected to only a routine evaluation and follow-up.