Lip cancer: A 16-year retrospective epidemiological study in Eastern part of Turkey.

Objective: To review lip cancer patients with respect to age, gender, location and histological type of tumour, and risk factors.

Methods: This retrospective study was conducted at the Yuzuncu Yil University, Van, Turkey, and comprised medical records of the histologically confirmed lip cancer patients who presented between 1994 and 2010. No patient had neck nodes or evidence of distant metastasis.

Results: Of the 91 patients 73(80.22%) were men and 18(19.78%) were women. The overall mean age was 62.32±13.88 years (range: 25 to 97 years). Histologically, the tumour was a squamous cell carcinoma in 81(89.01%) cases and a basal cell carcinomas in 10(10.99%) cases. Upon admission, the mean diameter of the tumour in squamous cell carcinoma patients was 2.03±1.23 cm and 1.87±1.29 cm in basal cell carcinoma patients. As for the tumour differentiation, 67(84.72%) of the squamous cell carcinoma cases were well differentiated, while 14(17.28%) were moderately differentiated.

Conclusions: The incidence of lip cancer was found to be higher among men, while the histopathological type was mostly squamous cell carcinoma and well differentiated.