Clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study of secondary cervical lymph node metastasis in stage I and II squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue

Abstract

We performed a clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study of secondary cervical lymph node metastasis in stage I/II squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue. We investigated retrospectively 55 patients with stage I/II tongue carcinoma who were treated surgically from 1997 to 2006 at our department. Informed consent was obtained from all patients in this study. Fourteen of the 55 patients showed secondary cervical lymph node metastasis. To evaluate the activity of tumor cells of the primary site, we observed the expression of Ki-67 antigen at × 200 magnification, and calculated the Ki-67 labeling index. The high mark group significantly showed cervical lymph node metastasis in comparison with the low mark group (P = 0.024). Also, we performed immunohistochemical staining with D2-40 antigen to investigate the image of lymphatic vessel invasion and the number of peritumoral lymphatic vessels. Images of lymphatic vessel invasion were not observed, and we did not find a significant difference between the number of peritumoral lymphatic vessels and secondary cervical lymph node metastasis. It was thought that the Ki-67 labeling index could be used to predict secondary cervical lymph node metastasis.