MicroRNA-Based Cancer Mortality Risk Scoring System and hTERT Expression in Early-Stage Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Table 3

The median time-to-recurrence, time-to-death, and survival rate in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients treated with surgery only (S) or surgery with neck dissection (S + ND). Initial high- versus low-risk stratification using 0 as cutoff, and then subrisk stratification into highest, moderately high, moderately low, and low risks are shown. For clinical use, the patients can be categorized into high versus moderate versus low-risk groups; the “high-risk strata (≥2)” represents a group of patients at greater risk of cancer relapse and death even after S + ND, compared to “moderate-risk strata (0 to <2)”, in which survival greatly improves with S + ND. For the “low-risk strata (<0)”, S is associated with survival benefit.

Risk strata	Sub-risk strata	Risk scores	Median time-to-recurrence	Median time-to-death	Cancer death (%)	5-year survival (%)	Clinical risks
High-risk	Highest risk	≥2					High-risk
	S Only		6 (months)	11 (months)	94	6
	S + ND		58	≥60	32	68
	Moderately high risk S only	1 to <2
			14	22	71	29
	S + ND		≥60	≥60	0	100	Moderate-risk
	Moderately low risk	0 to <1
	S Only		46	≥60	42	58
	S + ND		≥60	≥60	0	100
Low-risk	Low risk	<0					Low-risk
	S Only		≥60	≥60	11	89
	S + ND		≥60	≥60	26	74