Abstract
The correlation between clinico-pathological malignancy grading and ultrasonographic evaluation of cervical lymph nodes metastasis was studied in 46 patients (64 lymph nodes) with oral squamous cell carcinoma from 1987 to 1996.
The following conclusions were reached, as to the ultrasonographic findings, most lymph nodes with a minimal axial diameter of 10mm or more were diagnosed as metastasis. Furthermore, most metastatic cervical lymph nodes with a minimal axial diameter of less than 10mm showed high grade malignancy of primary (≥12 points).
The present results revealed that 92.2% of the involved lymph nodes were accurately estimated by using both ultrasonography and clinico-pathological malignancy grading.
So far as lymph nodes metastasis, a combination of urtrasonography and clinico-pathological malignancy grading is thought to be useful for the detection of cervical lymph node metastasis in oral malignant tumors.
