To evaluate the value of the age-adjusted Charlson comorbidity Index (ACCI) in predicting the prognosis and guiding the clinical treatment of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) in patients over 60 years old.

Retrospective analysis of 249 cases of LSCC in Shanxi Provincial Cancer Hospital and First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University from 2008 to 2015 was performed. There were 234 males and 15 females, aged from 60 to 88 years. The clinical characteristics, treatment information and follow-up data were collected. ACCI was used to score the comorbidities of the patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn and the patients were divided into high ACCI group and low ACCI group according to the cut-off value of ACCI. Prognostic factors were analyzed. Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis, rank sum test was used for comparison between groups, χ² test was used for enumeration data.

Overall survival (OS) was 54.6%, progression-free survival (PFS) was 59.4%, and cancer-specific survival (CSS) was 58.6%. Both the median survival time and PFS time were 60 months. The best cutoff point of the ACCI group was 5. Cox multivariate analysis showed that ACCI was an independent risk factor for OS, PFS and CSS (OR=1.553, 1.499 and 1.534,respectively, all P<0.05). In the high ACCI group, OS (χ²=4.120 and 4.115,P<0.05) and CSS (χ²=4.510 and 5.009,P<0.05) of patients treated with surgery plus radiotherapy and patients with radiotherapy alone were better than those of patients with surgery alone (P<0.05). But in the low ACCI group, there was no significant difference in prognosis among the three treatment regimens (P>0.05).

High ACCI offors important prognostic information for LSCC in patients over 60 years old, and can guide clinical treatment options.

Laryngeal neoplasms; Prognosis; Charlson comorbidity index