Systematic review of risk factors of postoperative dysphagia in patients with oral cancer.

OBJECTIVES

This study aims to identify risk factors of postoperative dysphagia in patients with oral cancer by systematic review.

METHODS

Cohort studies in Chinese or English on risk factors of postoperative dysphagia in patients with oral cancer were searched from CNKI, Wanfang database, VIP Chinese Journal Database, China Biomedical Literature Service System, Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Clinical Trials from the beginning to June 30, 2021. Subject words combined with free words were used to retrieve related articles. The included studies were evaluated, and the effective data were processed with Revman 5.3.

RESULTS

Ten studies were selected, and they included 1 241 patients consisting of 473 patients in the exposed group and 768 patients in the control group. After the meta-analysis, the risk factors with statistical significance were as follows: age>60 years, tumor located in oropharynx or mouth floor, tumor size of T3 or T4, TNM stage of Ⅳ, resection involving suprahyoid muscle or tongue resection>50%, combination of neck dissection, tracheotomy, or reconstruction, and postoperative radiotherapy.

CONCLUSIONS

Age>60 years, tumor in oropharynx or mouth floor, tumor size of T3 or T4, TNM stage of Ⅳ, resection involving suprahyoid muscle or tongue resection>50%, combination of neck dissection, tracheotomy, or reconstruction, and postoperative radiotherapy were significant risk factors of postoperative dysphagia in patients with oral cancer.