Demographics, clinical features, and prognosis of rare lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma across different anatomic sites

Abstract

Abstract Background Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELC) is an unusual histological malignancy type. Due to the rarity of this disease, we used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to investigate comprehensively and systematically the prognosis factor of LELC. Methods We identified 2079 patients diagnosed with LELC during 1973–2015 from the SEER database. LELC was classified according to the tumor site. We analyzed the clinical characteristics and estimated the hazard ratio (HR) of overall mortality of LELC at each site. Results The nasopharynx was the most frequent site where LELC (58%) occurred. A large percentage of nasopharyngeal and pulmonary LELC patients were of Asian descent (44.5 and 32.56%, respectively). Furthermore, the majority of LELC patients were rather young when diagnosed. However, urinary bladder LELC and digestive system LELC (mean age: 69.03 and 68.05 years, respectively) were mainly to be found in older patients. Then according to Kaplan–Meier survival analysis, we found that patients with pulmonary LELC had worse survival. After adjusting for clinical tumor characteristics, pulmonary LELC patients were at increased risk of overall mortality compared with nasopharyngeal LELC either at the localized stage (HR 3.12, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.55–6.26. P < 0.01) or at the regional stage (HR 1.72, 95% CI 1.03–2.88 P = 0.04). Conclusions In conclusion, we found that urinary bladder and digestive system LELCs mainly were diagnosed in old people and different from other LELCs. Pulmonary LELC patients might have a bad prognosis. The origination site may represent a predictive factor for determining survival in patients with LELC.