Background
Alveolar ridge squamous carcinomas develop in patients outside the usual constellation of risk factors.
Objective
To determine whether the use of dentures was a risk factor specific to patients with alveolar ridge carcinoma.
Design
Case-control method with a unique control group—a concurrent cohort of patients with head and neck cancer with primaries in the oropharynx, hypopharynx, and larynx.
Setting
Tertiary care hospital-based clinic.
Patients
Forty-one patients with squamous carcinomas centered on the maxillary or mandibular alveolar ridges. The control group was 175 concurrently seen patients with squamous carcinomas of the laryngopharynx for whom dental status was known.
Main Outcome Measures
Age at diagnosis, sex, tobacco use, alcohol use, and denture use.
Results
Patients with alveolar ridge were more likely to be female, older, nonsmokers, and nondrinkers. The crude odds ratio of denture use in patients with alveolar ridge cancer was 2.28 (P=.03). Eliminating other confounding factors with logistic regression, the adjusted odds ratio dropped to 1.30 (P=.59). Among patients with alveolar ridge, smoking status correlated with age and gender: current smokers were on average 64.4 years old and 9 of 16 were men. Nonsmokers' average age was 79.1 years and 1 of 11 was a man.
Conclusions
In this study, denture use was not an independent risk factor for alveolar ridge carcinomas. Among patients with little to no tobacco or alcohol exposure, the alveolar ridge carcinomas tended to occur in the elderly and in women.
Arch Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1997;124:1112-1115
