A comparison of outcomes for early oropharyngeal cancers treated with single-modality surgery versus radiotherapy.

Aims: We retrospectively compared results of surgery alone (SX) or radiotherapy alone (RT) for early stage tonsil and base of tongue cancers.

Materials & Methods: Outcomes for 386 SX and 362 RT patients from Surveillance, Epidemiology and End RESULTS database were analyzed using propensity covariate adjusted and inverse probability weighting models.

Results: With median follow-up of 71 months, unadjusted overall survival at 5 years was 66.