The Results of Treatment in Clinical N0 Oral Tongue Cancer

Joo, Young Hoon; Sun, Dong Il; Shin, Ji Hyeon; Lee, Chang Hoon; Cho, Seung Ho; Kim, Min Sik

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The status of cervical lymph node and its treatment has a great influence on the prognosis of the patient with tongue cancer. We were to analyze the outcomes of treatment in patients with N0 tongue cancer, and the incidence and pattern of neck metastasis.
SUBJECTS AND METHOD
The medical records of 50 patients with N0 tongue cancer who had surgical treatment performed at the department of Otolaryngology-HNS, College of Medicine, the Catholic University of Korea, between 1994 and 2006 were reviewed. All patients were treated surgically: 45 patients went through had neck dissection and 5 patients went through sentinel node biopsy.
RESULTS
The overall rate of occult neck metastasis was 17.8% (8 of 45). The pathologic T stage with occult neck metastasis were 3 cases in T1, 4 cases in T2, and 1 case in T3. The local recurrence rate was 12%. The overall regional recurrence rate was 8%. The regional recurrence rate of neck dissection group and sentinel LN biopsy group were 6.7% (3 of 45) and 20.0% (1 of 5), respectively. The depth of invasion in T2 cases of the regional recurring group was deeper than in T2 cases of the non-regional recurring group.
CONCLUSION
In clinical N0 tongue cancer, due to the relatively high overall occult metastasis rate and low recurrence rate at the neck node after the neck dissection, the elective neck dissection should be considered especially in deep tumor invasion cases.