1996 Volume 42 Issue 10 Pages 992-998
To assess the effect of preoperative chemotherapy on metastatic lymph nodes, 10MHz high-resolution ultrasonography was performed for 33 metastatic lymph nodes associated with 15 oral carcinomas. The changes in nodal size were correlated with histological response according to the grading system by Ohboshi and Shimozato.
The following findings were obtained.
1) There was no correlation between changes in nodal size after chemotherapy and histological response. This was presumably because factors such as lymphatic, necrotic, and granulation tissues also affect lymph node size.
2) Metastatic lymph nodes with central necrosis on initial CT examination tend to decrease in size regardless of the histological response.
In this study, we failed to demonstrate that the effect of preoperative chemotherapy can be assessed on the basis of changes in nodal size alone. Internal echoes should be included in the characteristics for evaluating response.
