Today, it seems difficult to imagine a time when tobacco and cancer were not causally linked. 6 This material is reproduced with permission of Wiley-Liss, Inc, a subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Slaughter et al introduced the concept of ‘field cancerization’ in Cancer in 1953. 1 Although there has been a slight decrease in overall incidence of head and neck cancer over the past 2 decades, 3 an increase in base of tongue and tonsillar cancer recently has been observed. 2 The median age of diagnosis is in the sixth decade of life, and there is a large male-to-female predominance. Despite advances in treatment options, approximately 11,210 head and neck cancer-related deaths occurred during 2007 in the United States. 2 Almost 66% of patients present with advanced-stage disease. 1 In the United States, head and neck cancer accounted for approximately 45,660 new cancer cases in 2007, corresponding to 3% of all new cancer diagnoses in this country. Approximately 650,000 new head and neck cancers are diagnosed annually, and there are 350,000 deaths yearly worldwide. Head and neck cancer includes epithelial malignancies of the upper aerodigestive tract (UADT), including the paranasal sinuses, nasal cavity, oral cavity, pharynx, and larynx and, as the sixth most common cancer worldwide, head and neck cancer represents about 6% of solid tumors.
