Abstract
Lingual carcinomas were found in the early stages. However, even weth early detection carcinomas may show lymph node metastasis in the neck, and this may play an important role in their outcome. For this reason, neck dissection is the treatment of choice for T2 lingual carcinomas. A surgical technique of submandibular dissection preserving the mandibular branch of the facial nerve has been done in our department for the past 3 years. The effectiveness of this technique was studied by means of histopathological investigations of superficial nodes that were included in fatty tissues together with the mandibular branch. The conclusions are as follows;
1. No lymph node metastasis was observed histopathologically in superficial fatty tissues that contained the mandibular branch in any of the 26 cases of T2 lingual carcinomas.
2. In 8 cases of those 26, lymph node metastasis was found histopathologically in deep submandibular tissues resected during neck dissection Even in these 8 cases, however, no metastasis was ditected in the superficial lymph nodes.
3. CH40 (activated carbon particle) was injected into the lateral surface of the mobile tongue and its uptake into the submandibular lymph nodes were investigated in 10 cases of N(-) head and neck carcinomas. CH40 was detected in none of the superficial lymph node.
4. These results indicate that early lingual carcinomas localizing in the lateral surface of the tongue do not metastasize into the superficial lymph nodes of the submandibular region, and that our surgical technique of submandibular dissection is useful for T2 lingual carcinomas.
